Written by Liting He 2022 Cohort
I’ve been watching “The strange things” over the last few weeks, and I love this series; when I chatted with my classmates, I found they also liked it, which made me think about the reasons behind the series’ popularity:
Background settings
“The stranger things” is a Netflix series in 2016, but the style is very retro. The story’s background is set in the 1980s; in an ordinary American town, there is a threat of monsters from another world and exist the secret experiment of the American military… The overall background is very attractive, sounds like an urban legend that parents talking about. These elements are very common in horror movies in the 1970s and 1980s. David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” also belongs to this kind of small-town horror story.
Besides, now we have already grown up. We have enough self-awareness to protect ourselves in this environment. Even if we do something wrong, we don’t need to act guilty and ashamed to meet the emotional expectations of others or a violent inner voice. What’s more, no one needs us to meet demand anymore. Even though this thinking is deeply ingrained in our minds, we can slowly persuade ourselves to keep reminding everything is role play!
Nerds, Geeks, Weirdos
Compared with the traditional impression, every main character in this story is not perfect, most of them are nerds and geeks. I guess the strange setting and interesting characters that are not common attract more audiences.
80’s elements
There are a lot of ’80s movie elements in the show. For example, the protagonist’s wardrobe seems based on ET (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and The “Jaws” poster on the bedroom wall (Jaws, 1975) is also a tribute to Spielberg. In addition, there are many tributes to Stephen King in the series. Such as the scene where the child attacks the monster with a slingshot, which pays tribute to his clown soul. I believe that audiences who like horror movies will definitely find more fun in them.
Monsters The setting of monsters with no facial features but only mouths makes this play perfect for fans of “Alien.” It also makes me think of the plot of “Parasitic Beast.” With the amazing biological art design, this scene can be both common and natural. What’s your take on this?