Stranger Things is one of Netflix’s first attempts at a horror movie, except they pulled it out into eight episodes of monster thrilling, suspense laden, magic wielding action. Set in the 1980’s, which is like the silver age of sci fi movies, the characters are fresh, realistic, and slightly reminiscent of the classic Freaks and Geeks.
The show follows Mike, Dustin, and Lucas as they search for their missing friend. The plot thickens when others disappear and the strange girl with no hair pulls out some Star Wars style telekinesis. The three tiers of investigators: the boys with the wizard girl, older siblings Nancy and Jonathan, and parents Chief Hopper and Ms. Byers all introduced real-world problems to the paranormal sleuthing they were up to. Whether it be dealing with bullies, exes, cramming for tests, the characters didn’t let the monsters and flashing lights deter them from being normal, at least as normal as they started.
The one thing hard to get right about science fiction is the world building – my term for the rules set forth by the elements of fantasy or in other words: how well does the story follow the logic that was introduced in the beginning. Lord of the Rings? Good. Twilight? No consistency.
Stranger Things toed the line of good world building. G-men trying to fight the Soviets with secret weapon projects and underground facilities. YES I will eat that up. If you throw in an Area 51 style compound to your story you get automatic points. However, the monsters were less than detailed. Carnivorous, somewhat humanoid, and intelligent enough to crawl through portals to an alternate dimension and take their prey back, but too dumb not to walk into a trap was a weird combination. Especially with the lack of screen time – the director was pulling an Alien where the monster wasn’t seen to make it seem scarier – the demons just felt cheap and out of place when the audience did get a good look at them.
The other world, the “upside down” as they called it, also lacked substance in that it was never given a purpose or explanation other than to just be scary. It paralleled our world, even had the same structures such as Will’s play-fort. The world was gray, covered in ash, and completely inhabited by two (maybe?) monster things. So what are we supposed to make of the upside down? My theory is that it is an alternate universe that recently split from ours. Think Earth 1 versus Earth 2 in the Flash with the aesthetic of Cormac McCarthy. Since Will and friends are twelve years old, and most babies I know don’t have the skills to build a fort, the upside down probably diverged from our timeline in the past five years. Cars left in the street, ash floating, and no normal looking life forms combined with the fact that the g-men were trying to fight the Russians leads me to conclude that the upside down is a Cold War gone wrong scenario. It’s a nuclear war that left Indiana in poor shape.
Much was left in the air, especially with that cliff hanger ending. Hopefully we’ll get some answers in season two. Either way, if you’re looking to binge watch some suspense genre, or just like Steven King novels, Stranger Things is worth your time.
