Netflix released a new original series called "Stranger Things" that feels like an ode to Steven Spielberg's "E.T." but with a much darker approach. Winona Ryder stars in this thrilling sci-fi/horror set in 1983 Indiana as Joyce, a distressed mother who tries to search for her missing 12-year-old son, Will, who gets abducted by something strange just outside their small town.
Along with Joyce, police chief Hopper (David Harbour) and three of Will's friends restlessly search for the missing boy, but find other mysteries including supernatural forces and government experiments that plague the town.
What makes "Stranger Things" an amazing show is how it uses just the right amount of '80s nostalgia for the audience to stick around, but yet, recreates this time period with its own amount of substance allowing the viewers to travel back to a time when things seemed to be much simpler while still managing to creep them out with modern scares and jolts.
Spielberg is not the only person "Stranger Things" pays homage to and this is revealed through the characters of the show. The three young protagonists definitely have the Spielberg vibe, but the teenage characters feel more like they are out of horror classics such as John Carpenter's "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th." The teenagers, with their drinking and social gatherings, only seem to lure in the creature which stalks the town at night, which also happens in most of the slasher films back in the late '70s and throughout the '80s.
The show is paced well, hardly taking breaks from the mysteries that plague the small town and each of the characters are entertaining, which only adds to the depth of the story as a whole. The young actors of the series also prove themselves to be just as talented as the adults, especially Millie Bobby Brown, who plays the complex character, Eleven, who escapes from the clutches of a scientist within the mysterious government facility. Overall, "Stranger Things" pays homage to old school horror, while still managing to hold its own ground as a horror/sci-fi series.
