A quickie with ....
STRANGER THINGS CREATORS THE DUFFER BROTHERS
Tell us where we left off in season three and where we’re picking up in season four.… Matt Duffer:
Season three had a very dramatic end with the Battle of Starcourt. We had all of our characters fighting, and Hopper sacrificed his life to close the gate to the Upside Down and end it all – or so it seemed at the time. His assumed death had a major impact on all of our characters and sent them scattering at the end of the season. We have the Byers and Eleven leaving for, as we learn this season, California. And then Joyce receives a mysterious clue, which leads her to believe Hopper may possibly be alive in Russia.
What differentiates season four from past seasons? Matt:
We call this our Game Of Thrones season because we have so many different locations. We have Hawkins, of course, as always, but then on top of that we have California and Russia. We have storylines in those three major locations, and each has a very distinct feel and look.
Ross Duffer: We had a lot of fun with the fact that season three was set in summer, and it was really technicolour and bright and very poppy. We saw it as our summer blockbuster, but it had one of the darker endings with Hopper being gone and our group splitting up. We continue with that darkness this season.
You’ve made this the darkest and scariest season yet. Can you talk about that tonal shift? Matt:
We’re always trying something different each season to make sure the show is evolving. And that comes naturally in a lot of ways because our kids are growing up. We thought that this was a good year to put them in what is basically a horror film. What the teens are dealing with is a fully fledged Nightmare On Elm Street-esque horror film. A lot of that has to do with the new villain this year, a more humanoidlooking monster in the vein of classic supernatural serial killers. That’s another huge defining factor for this season. ■