With the fifth and final season of Stranger Things coming to Netflix in time for Thanksgiving in the US – or, for the rest of the English-speaking world, Black Friday – we’ve grown a little nostalgic.
And not merely because the popular show is coming to an end after almost ten years. This is a production that was pretty much built on a particular form of second-hand nostalgia for an 1980s that only ever really existed in the movies.
As such, it’s a show that wears its pop culture influences loudly and proudly. Creators The Duffer Brothers have been quite open and honest about how the media they consumed as ‘80s and ‘90s brats went into the construction of their multi-billion-dollar franchise.
It’s both instructive and fun, then, to examine some of those influences as we look ahead to the series finale. All good things come to an end... until they’re absorbed by the next generation, regurgitated, and formed into an unholy new creation.
Watch: E.T.
The premise of Stranger Things, back when The Duffer Brothers were first pitching it around the studios, was “if Steven Spielberg directed a Stephen King novel”. There’s no other place to start this piece than with a (re) watch of the great director’s seminal ‘80s movie, E.T. – clips from which were used as a mood board and a proof of concept by the show’s creators. The original film’s influence is right at the very core of Stranger Things, with its group of suburban kids haring around on bikes, trying to protect an otherworldly buddy from faceless officials.
Read: Firestarter
The other half of that “if Steven Spielberg directed a Stephen King novel” equation might seem harder to pin down, given the 65 books that the horror maestro has written. But really, there’s one standout choice here.
Firestarter concerns a young girl with nosebleed-inducing mental powers, who finds herself on the run from a shady government organisation. Sound familiar? It’s not an exact match, of course, but we’d posit that this was the novel The Duffer Brothers had in mind with their pithy pitch – with a little Carrie stirred in for good measure.
Listen to: the Escape From New York soundtrack
In creating the aforementioned pitch for Stranger Things, The Duffer Brothers stitched together clips of E.T. (as detailed above) with the score from Escape From New York. John Carpenter’s movies are a huge point of reference for the series, but in this case, it’s the soundtrack that seemed to have the most direct influence on Stranger Things. Listening to this soundtrack from the 1981 movie, it’s easy to see its DNA present in the moody, synth-driven title track from the Netflix hit.
Play: Dungeons & Dragons
The rights holders of Dungeons & Dragons owe The Duffer Brothers a bottle of something nice for Christmas. Of course, you could argue that Stranger Things creators owe the makers of the popular fantasy board game a whole lot more.
D&D (as it’s colloquially referred to) is referenced countless times by our young gang of nerdy heroes throughout the series, as they use the lore from their favourite shared pastime to label and contextualise the bizarre supernatural occurrences around them. It only seems right that we roll the dice along with them.
Watch: Alien
You don’t need The Duffer Brothers to tell you that the design of season one’s chief threat was inspired by Alien’s xenomorph. It’s quite obvious just from looking at the way the slimy creature skulks and stalks its prey.
Even its unfurling death-flower of a head has something of H.R. Giger’s face hugger egg design to it. Then there’s the way the creature sticks some of its victims in a shady place and implants them with wriggly monstrosities. Anyone else hungry?
Watch: Stand By Me
We’ve already discussed the influence that Stephen King’s novels had on Stranger Things, but this next reference point is in itself an adaptation of the great author’s work. It’s more of a tonal link with Rob Reiner’s 1986 movie, which concerns a group of ‘50s kids setting out to find a dead body.
There’s a shared mix of light and shade, a palpable sense of nostalgia, and strong themes of youthful friendships standing against the darker aspects of life. Little wonder that scenes from the movie formed part of the audition process for ST’s young cast.
Watch: Altered States
You know all the bits about Eleven being placed in a flotation tank to help her access the full extent of her psychic powers? These were taken directly from Ken Russell’s 1980 sci-fi-horror movie Altered States, in which William Hurt’s scientist exposes himself to sensory deprivation (and a job load of psychotropics) in a bid to reach new states of consciousness. The influence is there, right down to the contraptions used on our hero’s psychic journey, including her peculiar tank-dipping getup.
Watch: The Goonies
We don’t really need to explain this one, do we? Perhaps, to certain of Stranger Things’s younger fans, we do. Richard Donner’s seminal 1985 movie sees a group of misfit kids embarking on a perilous adventure to locate a legendary hoard of treasure.
Forget all the piratey stuff, though – it’s the characterisation of the kids here that Stranger Things clearly borrows from, with its assorted ‘80s archetypes all ganging together for a common cause. See also the fine line that’s trodden between kid-friendly entertainment and darker turns, and the fact that adults exist largely as background figures and antagonists.
Watch: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Before diving into the fifth season of Stranger Things, it would perhaps be an idea to track down the major influence for the fourth. It was here that season (and indeed series) villain Vecna was revealed to be a psychopath-turned-supernatural-monster who invades the minds of small-town American teens. If that sounds an awful lot like Freddy Krueger, the dream-raiding spectre that haunts the youths of 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, you’d be on to something. It’s no coincidence that Robert Englund – the actor who plays the blade-handed Mr. Krueger himself – was cast to play Vecna’s father.
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