A Brief History
On October 12, 2020, we had the opportunity to watch a “movie” composite of the web streaming series, When the Streetlights Go On, a Quibi production consisting of 10 episodes, each running several minutes. Our screening was a continuous playing of the series in the form of a movie. As with previous Quibi productions, Streetlights is a top quality video with excellent actors, directing and cinematography.
Breaking News: On October 21, 2020, news of an imminent shut down of Quibi was broken, and confirmed the next day. Despite raising a considerable amount of capital for investment (nearly $2 billion) and gaining around 1 million subscribers, the projected revenue that the predicted 7 million subscribers was supposed to create was not realized. We do not know who will end up controlling whatever video content has already been streamed by Quibi or is on deck for release.
Digging Deeper
While horror movies are our favorite genre, it is hard to say if Streetlights is straight up horror or merely a murder mystery. It certainly feels like some sort of Stephen King type of story, though without any supernatural aspects. The plot (we do not provide spoilers!) revolves around the murder of a beautiful high school girl and her youthful, dynamic teacher that is the heart throb of the local girls. The family dynamic of the underappreciated sister of the slain teen and the teen age angst involved in the tangled relationships of the high schoolers makes for a gripping and intriguing story, more so than mere words on a screen would seem to indicate. Casting, directing and acting are all extremely good, truly a top notch production. We definitely like being able to see the episodes rolled into one instead of having to watch them one by one, though by not having the one at a time experience it is hard to say for sure how that would grab us.
The story is told through the perspective of Charlie Chambers, a neighbor and friend of the family with the murdered daughter. Chambers’ role is not epic, but the quality of his acting, including the voice over parts, is excellent and bodes well for his future in film. The central action characters, in addition to Charlie, are Becky, the sister of the deceased, played by Sophie Thatcher in a subdued, understated way that commands the screen, and Sam Strike as Casper Tatum, the quintessential bad boy of the high school and the guy (almost) everybody loves to hate. Other supporting actors, including Queen Latifah as the serious police detective in charge of the murder investigation are all excellent.
Who killed the popular pretty girl and popular handsome teacher? You will have to watch the series/film to find out if the killer is revealed!
Now that we have a couple of these Quibi productions under our belts, we eagerly look forward to the next ones. Production quality is on par with major Hollywood efforts and youthful (born in 1984) director Rebecca Thomas has Stranger Things in her resume, if that tells you something about her abilities. (We are Stranger Things fans.) By all means, watch Streetlights and check out other Quibi productions.
Question for students (and subscribers): What is your favorite murder mystery film? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Keane, Zara. Some Like It Shot. Beaverstone Press, 2020.
Thomson, David. Murder and the Movies. Yale University Press, 2020.
The featured image in this article, a scaled-down, low-resolution promotional image, is used in an article that provides critical commentary on the web television series in question and is used on a website hosted on servers in the United States per fair use under the copyright law of the United States.
