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| Scene from Stranger Things |
Over the past two weeks, Netflix's latest series Stranger Things has gained a sort of phenomenon online with retro horror fans, including endorsement from Stephen King. Speaking as we're living in a culture full of reboots, it only makes sense that a series steeped in 80's nostalgia would connect with a niche audience. At a digestible eight episodes, the series sought to rejuvenate the era with an original story that couldn't help but heavily borrow from its period. The results were a beaming ball of fun mixed with mystery and monsters. Of course, the question of how successful that was depends on how willing you are to just enjoy the story for what it is. If you get stuck being admired by the references crammed in, the series begins to suffer and loses that "originality" cred. However, it's still entertaining enough to make for an ingenious new entry into Netflix's already overcrowded line-up. It finds an audience who wants horror by way of E.T. and John Carpenter. And thankfully, The Duffer Brothers deliver wonderfully enough here.
If there is one issue with the series as a whole, it's that it doesn't necessarily reinvent the wheel. It mostly takes existing ideas and mesh them into their original story about a boy who goes missing in an alternate dimension. The slow progression allows for the supernatural to peak its head out randomly throughout the first half before becoming more prominent in the latter. The story is resolved without much of an innovative twist, more relying on the familiar shady government corporations and a sense that there's more than meets the eye. There is, but it's a lot of familiar if you know your 80's references. There's King's work alone, which has nods to a variety of work including but not limited to Firestarter, It, and Stand By Me. It all works because the cast is game, but it doesn't do much beyond tell a story through the Spielbergian lens of naive childlike wonder. In that sense, it's a rather underwhelming series.
However, it does have a few hooks. Despite being at times sporadic with its tone and scene references, it does have a grounded sense of tone. We're left every episode with a cliffhanger and slightly more knowledge. As underwhelming as the story is, the show manages to serve as a well written mystery by following the serial model that Netflix claims to use, but often doesn't. Considering that The Duffer Brothers want Stranger Things to have multiple seasons for one story, one can only imagine what happens next. Maybe things will go bigger and have more catharsis. Maybe they will just be more 80's references (possibly... Cujo?) to be used as a crutch. Still, the show embraces a side of sci-fi and fantasy that is being ignored by the streaming service, and it's doing it well.
Among other things, each episode is conveniently named with its own chapter heading. It alone serves as a clue as to what the episode will hold, forcing audiences to determine what crucial details are being revealed in between the children going to school and the mother trying to communicate with her lost son via lights on a wall. There's a lot of small and kooky things that make the show watchable. While the characters aren't all that fleshed out to make them the most engaging protagonists in recent years, they at least have a chemistry that rewards spending time with them. You're left feeling like the children were dropped out of a Spielberg film down to their giant optimism in rescuing their friend and finding out the origin story of a new friend named 11 (or El).
One could easily dissect the beats as to why the show works. However, it does feel pointless because, more than anything, this is a show about tone. If you like the spookiness of 80's suburbia, then you'll like this. If all of those old King adaptations are your fancy, you'll find a lot to get out of the references. The Duffer Brothers are clearly film buffs and make the most of their references. However, I don't know if the show amounts to much else besides rehashing the familiar in perplexing ways. It's a good story, but there's an overlying desire for it to be better. It will do for those who can appreciate it as the mystery that it is. It just isn't one that comes with anything overwhelmingly exciting at the end. At most, it works because it doesn't botch the ending. It ends on a satisfying note, and that may be enough to warrant this as a good show.
OVERALL RATING: 3.5 out of 5
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