Stranger Things Review — 80s sci-fi nostalgia
The new retro-fest Netflix show gave the newer generation an insight into the nostalgia that is 80s America, from the rotary house phones to the bowl cuts and frills. The eight-episode ominous series portrayed it perfectly.
Stranger Things — set in 1983 Indiana in the fictional town of Hawkins, centered around a group of kids as they search to find their missing friend Will Buyers who disappeared after cycling home. The persistent 12-year-old protagonists stop at nothing to investigate further and beyond what the Hawkins sheriff department seems to be doing, especially when they encounter Eleven (Milly Bobby-Brown) an almost-mute girl, straight out of a science lab facility, with strange powers, like something straight out of a Spielberg film or King novel. The boys have to hide her in their basement as she learns how to trust and what friendship and humanity are.
The Duffer Brothers, the creators of the show, developed the series as a mix of investigative drama alongside supernatural elements portrayed with horror, science fiction, and childlike sensibilities. Setting the series in the 1980s, the Duffer Brothers infused references to the pop culture of that decade while several themes and directorial aspects were inspired mainly by the works of Steven Spielberg, and Stephen King as well as incorporating anime and video games. They also took inspiration from strange experiments that took place during the cold war era and real-world conspiracy theories involving secret government experiments.
Moving onto the acting and characters, the former Heather herself, the 80s-90s queen Winona Ryder, is cast as Will’s mother, in one of the few high profile roles she has undertaken, Winona, however, is not a main onscreen character, she primarily stays situated to her house, continually making contact with Will through light fittings in the house which allows him to communicate to her through whatever supernatural vortex he is currently in.
All the child actors — provide mature acting and are so good at their roles, while providing grown-up approaches to their roles and delivering their serious scenes properly, they provide the perfect mixture of mature and immature still giving into their childish nature as a 12-year-old who wouldn’t have to battle supernatural government-produced aliens, would behave. Finn Wolfhard (who plays Mike Wheeler) as the main protagonist alongside Milly Bobby Brown (Eleven) has gone onto perform in a reboot of Stephen King's IT novel, and other alternative sci-fi, horror adventures, reprising his supernatural/drama roles.
Stranger Things ends with enough spooky supernatural loopholes to real in another season, in their ominous story.
Stranger Things is available on Netflix now.
