1985 Strangely good for TV
When the third season of Netflix’s genremashing cultural phenomenon Stranger Things dropped yesterday, it was more than 20 months since we last saw the gang.
So the teen stars looked like they had matured awfully fast.
If you’d seen them as they were out promoting Stranger Things, you would have noticed they had grown up even more since shooting the new episodes.
While Netflix kept specifics tightly under wraps about the upcoming season, the young cast members promised two things – more gore and plenty of romance.
The series from the Duffer brothers is set in a fictional Indiana small town of Hawkins during the 80s, and the new season is set in 1985.
When the series debuted in 2016, we were introduced to four young buddies – Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Will (Noah Schnapp) – who spend their time playing Dungeons & Dragons and joyfully tooling around on their bikes.
That is until they stumbled on
the burg’s dark secret – a sinister government lab that led to the Upside Down, ‘‘a mirror world of our own, except everything is awful and creepy and ruled over by hideous monsters of unspeakable terror’’, as Matarazzo described it.
After that, things got crazy. Will disappeared into the Upside Down, and then things got even crazier.
While the show’s Indiana Jones-style impossible situations and horror plot twists are enjoyable, the real fun for audiences is watching these goofy, loveable kids – which quickly expanded beyond just the four guys – somehow escape danger while taking in all those 80s-era pop references.
It was 10 years filled with classic teen movies such as The Breakfast Club and Back to the Future, both of which were released in 1985, the year in which this season is set.
The latter film is one of many that have already been referenced in ST, but the Duffers told Entertainment Weekly that another of Robert Zemeckis classics, Romancing the Stone (1984), helped inspire the new season.
The admitted cultural geeks also cited Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Thing, Midnight Run, the three Indiana Jones flicks of the decade, and Jurassic Park as playing a part.
The real breakout star from the first season wasn’t one of the guys but the preternatural Millie Bobby Brown, who recently starred in Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
She turned 15 earlier this year, but even when I interviewed her three years ago, Brown showed a mature poise most adults would envy.
In Stranger Things, she plays Eleven – or El for short – an escapee from the secret lab who was known only by the number. The mysterious girl possesses superpowers but has been traumatised by the experiments done to her in the lab.
Joining the cast last season was Sadie Sink as ‘‘Mad’’ Max, a tomboyish transplant from California who believes the guys and their wild tales of monsters. Like the others, she is growing up fast and catches the eyes of Lucas and Dustin.
It’s Lucas who manages to overcome his shyness and ask her to dance at their middleschool ball in Season 2’s final scenes.
This is after El and the gang rid the town of the monsters, and she used her powers to close the portal to the Upside Down. She even finds out her real name – Jane Hopper.
Everything seems to be ending sweetly with the dance (or so they think).
Poor Mike finally gets to act on his crush, asking El to take a spin on the dance floor, although neither knows what they are doing.
They even kiss as the Police’s Every Breath You Take plays on the soundtrack, but as the camera pulls back for the final shot the creepier aspect of that song becomes evident as a giant shadow looms over the school, setting up Season 3.
Maya Hawke, the daughter of actors Uma Thurman and Ethan
Hawke, joined the cast this year as Robin, a bored young woman who works at the new mall.
And David Harbour as determined police chief Jim Hopper – now sporting a moustache – Winona Ryder as Will’s mom, and Natalie Dyer as
Mike’s older sister are back for the summer of 1985 just before the gang enters high school.
Besides the mall, vying for the teens’ attention is the Fun Fair, and everyone knows travelling carnivals usually mean something dark and ominous.
Until now, the series has always trafficked in PG horror. So while we can guess where the romance will come from in the new season, we will have to wait until deeper into the series to find out if it will indeed turn gorier – and stranger.
One clue, though, is that the Duffers said one of their other inspirations this year were the films of David Cronenberg, a master of twisted, surreal horror apparently once dubbed the, uh, ‘‘King of Venereal Horror’’.
But then, just think back to
Cronenberg’s movies of the era: The Dead Zone (1983), The Fly (1985), Dead Ringers (1988), Videodrome (1983), The Brood (1979), and Scanners (1981).
Memories of them alone can give you nightmares.
– The Daily News (Los Angeles)