Christopher Tola

So… this is actually the first review I’ve done for a show despite there being other fantastic shows in the past (Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, etc). My short review is that this show is brilliant is all aspects, both in plot/pace AND theme. While plot is very important to a show, and this show is a solid 10/10 when it comes to that, no doubt, what I wanted to expand on is the theme elements depicted here. This show, like a novel, is a page turner. And you can’t just have a good plot to accomplish that. You need heart. You need character development. Most importantly, you need inspiration, and it is apparent that The Duffer Brothers are bookworms with a very high appreciation for Lovecraftian old-school horror, and also modern horror in the realm of Stephen King. I won’t spoil anything, but there are elements of King’s “Firestarter”, “Carrie”, “It”, “The Talisman”, “The Shining”, and so much more film references: “The Blob”, “War of the Worlds”, “Nightmare on Elm Street”. So, if you enjoy a well-spun horror novel (or film) with an abundance of science fiction, you’ll like this show. If you tend to get lost in a good novel, you’ll like this show. You’ll love it, actually. This show is more than science fiction or horror. As I mentioned, it has more heart than anything else. We get to watch the characters grow and mature, both physically and emotionally, and sometimes it can be unbearable to see. What makes this show so investing is that a lot of us DIDN’T grow up in the 80s, but a lot of our parents made us aware of music from that decade. Our parents often talk about their love interests, jobs, home environment growing up, too. I think a lot of us mirror the characters from “Stranger Things”, or rather, we would like to. There’s something simplistic about the setting, and a lot of us are left feeling nostalgic about a time we never knew… Watch this show for your own good.