Tubi has released the trailer for its original thriller Stepfather, starring Taye Diggs and Tamar Braxton, and it is exactly the kind of slow-burn domestic nightmare the premise promises. The film premieres exclusively on the platform June 19.
Directed by Chris Stokes and written by Stokes alongside Marques Houston, the film follows Darnell (Diggs), a man who has spent years eliminating any family that falls short of his twisted idea of perfection. When he marries Asia (Braxton) and settles in with her daughters, he believes he may have finally found what he has long been searching for. That is, until tensions rise, the family begins to uncover his deadly pattern, and getting rid of them turns out to be far more complicated than he ever planned.
The cast also includes Kalani Jules, Jessica Jarrell, Janeline Hayes, Dante Brown, Troy Brookins, TJ Shaw, Koda Kalani Beschen and Elizabeth Dantus. The film also reunites Diggs and Jarrell who both lead the microdrama Off Limits & All Mine on Candyjar.
While the film is not billed as a remake of the 1987 horror classic of the same name, genre fans will find the premise immediately familiar. The original The Stepfather, directed by Joseph Ruben and starring Terry O’Quinn in a career-defining performance, was unsettling enough to spawn two sequels and a 2009 remake. This new version does not acknowledge its predecessor in any of its promotional materials, though the DNA is hard to miss. If anything, the expanded family unit here, with multiple daughters in the household, suggests the stakes and the potential body count are both higher.
Stokes and Houston are no strangers to this territory. The duo previously collaborated on the Tubi thriller The Stepmother, which proved popular enough to receive two sequels, making Stepfather a natural next chapter in what has become a reliable franchise lane for the platform. The film is produced by Footage Films Studios, with Stokes and Houston also serving as executive producers.
Meanwhile, Diggs has been making moves in the fast-growing microdrama space. He and partners Autumn Federici, Shelby Stone, James Black and Troy Brookins recently announced the launch of Microhouse Films, a mobile-first vertical storytelling platform set to go live this spring. Diggs has already been in the mix, executive producing Tides of Temptation for Lifetime and starring in the CandyJar romance series Off Limits and All Mine.