Fear the Walking Dead's Danay Garcia says '50 States of Fright' is perfect for the Quibi format
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard of Quibi, the new mobile-only streaming service. Packed with tons of star-studded shows and movies, Quibi's got a lot of great content to keep you occupied during the coronavirus quarantine.
One of the most exciting new shows on the service is Sam Raimi's '50 States of Fright'. The series, which is being produced by Gunpowder & Sky, boasts a stellar cast, including 'Fear the Walking Dead' star Danay Garcia who spoke to MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) in an interview, offering some insight into the show and what makes it special.
"'50 States of Fright' is a series and each state has a scary story and each state has like three episodes of 10 minutes," Garcia explained, "My state is Florida and I have three episodes of 10 minutes each and what's really cool about it is that I really don't like leaving things halfway. And especially now that you're home all day, it's like you have to do something but you're like, 'Oh wait, I want to finish this'. But with quick bites, it's like, you can do it cause it's like 10 minutes and then you can do whatever you want to do. So it's a very unique way to kind of like, you know, put content out there for people to just enjoy it, you know?"
"It's super-convenient. It's like a 10-minute episode and you get to watch three of them," she continued. "Like if you can't watch two because you have kids and you, you know, you're home all day, you can do 10 minutes and then you can carry on with your thing and then come back and do 10 minutes. And it's all on the phone like the whole platform is on your phone. So you can bring it with you anywhere. Especially me now. Like, you know, we do lines to pick up food. It's perfect."
Of course, the shorter format does offer some challenges but Danay does feel that the format works well for the spooky content that '50 States of Fright' offers.
"Well, it's kind of like the whole story is pretty condensed," she said. "It's like something that would take like an hour to tell, it's just pretty straightforward. Especially with this kind of story that is kind of scary, like spooky, you know? It's super easy to be adjusted to the time limit."
"If it's more like a, like a drama, like something long, that needs time to be told, I'm not sure it will be adjusted to this kind of formula but this one, the reason why it works is because it's scary," she explained. "So right when you want to watch more, that's when the 10 minutes are up. So it's kind of a... it teases the audience a lot and it makes sense for '50 States of Fright'. I think that we'll enjoy it just because it keeps you wanting to watch more. And for an actor, it's fun because you get to really go all the way from the start. You have no time to think about it. You're just right there."
The first few episodes of the show are out on Quibi already and having seen them, we've got to admit that the 5-10 minute timeframe does work well for the show, giving us just enough content in each episode to keep us hooked and waiting for the next one. We can't say for sure how well the service might do in the long run but in the case of '50 States of Fright' at least, it definitely works. (With inputs from Lakshana Palat)