Stranger Things

Stranger Things is a science-fiction horror series created by brothers Matt and Ross Duffer for Netflix. It premiered on July 15, 2016, and begins in Hawkins, Indiana, during November 1983. After twelve-year-old Will Byers disappears, his friends Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, and Lucas Sinclair meet Eleven, a girl with psychokinetic abilities who has escaped from Hawkins National Laboratory. Their search exposes the laboratory’s experiments, a parallel dimension called the Upside Down, and a predatory creature known as the Demogorgon. Winona Ryder plays Will’s determined mother, Joyce Byers, while David Harbour portrays police chief Jim Hopper. The second season takes place in 1984 and follows the continuing effects of Will’s connection to the Upside Down. A larger entity called the Mind Flayer threatens Hawkins, and Eleven investigates her past, including the laboratory’s other test subjects. The season also introduces Max Mayfield, played by Sadie Sink, and expands the roles of Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler. Season three moves to the summer of 1985, centering on the newly opened Starcourt Mall. Beneath the mall, Soviet scientists attempt to reopen the gateway to the Upside Down. The season combines that conspiracy with the Mind Flayer’s possession of Billy Hargrove, Max’s older stepbrother, and ends with Hopper apparently sacrificing himself. Season four is set in 1986 and divides its characters among Hawkins, California, Russia, and a Soviet prison. In Hawkins, a series of supernatural murders leads the group to Vecna, an intelligent enemy connected to the laboratory’s history. The season reveals that Vecna is Henry Creel, also known as One, the first subject in Dr. Martin Brenner’s program, and that Eleven helped send him into the Upside Down. Max becomes a target, and her use of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” became a major real-world cultural moment after the song gained renewed chart success. The season concludes with Vecna’s attack opening enormous rifts through Hawkins, leaving the town vulnerable to the Upside Down. The series stars Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, and others. Its 1980s setting is reflected in its arcade games, costumes, music, and references to films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Goonies. Filmed largely in Georgia, Stranger Things combines coming-of-age drama with supernatural mystery while building its story around recurring characters, government experimentation, and the consequences of opening contact with another world.