The Blackening: clip from horror comedy shows a run-in with Diedrich Bader’s Ranger White

Lionsgate will be giving director Tim Story’s horror comedy The Blackening a theatrical release on June 16th – and with two weeks to go until that date arrives, a clip from the film has shown up online. This clip shows a run-in with the character Ranger White, played by Diedrich Bader of Office Space and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, and you can check it out in the embed above.

Story directed The Blackening from a screenplay by Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins. Inspired by a Perkins-scripted 3Peat comedy sketch that aired on Comedy Central in 2018, the film is about a group of Black friends who go away for the weekend only to find themselves trapped in a cabin with a killer who forces them to play a game with life-or-death consequences. The idea asks a reasonable question: since it seems that Black characters are usually the earliest victims in horror films, what happens when all the characters are Black?

Perkins (The Upshaws) stars in the film alongside Antoinette Robertson (Dear White People), Sinqua Walls (Shark Night), Grace Byers (Empire), X Mayo (The Farewell), Melvin Gregg (The Way Back), Jermaine Fowler (The Drop), Yvonne Orji (Insecure), Jay Pharoah (Unsane), James Preston Rogers (Pixels), and the aforementioned Diedrich Bader. I didn’t know Bader was in this movie until I saw the Ranger White clip, and it’s always nice to see him show up in something.

Lionsgate’s Jason Constantine has said that The Blackening is “a wildly entertaining horror movie that delivers jump-out-of-your-seat scares while also hilariously subverting the genre.” Story and Oliver produced the film with Marcei A. Brown, Jason Clark, E. Brian Dobbins, and Sharla Sumpter Bridgett. Perkins co-produced, and Vicky Story is associate producer.

Story’s previous directing credits include Barbershop, Taxi, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Hurricane Season, Think Like a Man, Ride Along, Think Like a Man Too, Ride Along 2, Shaft, and Tom & Jerry.

What did you think of the clip from The Blackening? Will you be seeing this movie on the big screen later this month? Let us know by leaving a comment below.