Stranger Things (Season 1 review)

“Stranger Things” is A love letter to the ’80s classics that captivated a generation. This Netflix exclusive is set in 1983 Indiana, in a small rural town where a young boy named Will Byers (Played by Noah Schnapp) vanishes into thin air. As friends, family and local police search for answers, they are drawn into an extraordinary mystery involving top-secret government experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one very strange little girl who harbors a secret of her own.

Netflix fires on every cylinder, with its latest ode to the 1980’s Sci-fi cinema. “Stranger Things” and The Duffer Brothers (Show creators) certainly knows its audience well, borrowing many coincidences and tone feeling from films like “It”, “ET” and even “Stand By Me”, but it never feels insulting or overdone. It is a visual delight, as well as an original take on the Sci-Fi genre that has a very wide crossover appeal with many different kinds of audiences. This is very much a tribute to that era in cinema where kids stories were treated with an adult layering. Nothing here feels silly or comical, despite the existence of outside worlds and kids battling them. For a mere eight episodes, this is simply a presentation that is too beautiful not to immerse yourself in, and along the way you will enjoy several coincidences that makes this one feel like it was left on the shelves for thirty years, only to be discovered today. There were so many things that I felt were noteworthy of this opening season, and it has me impatiently waiting for a second helping sometime in 2017.

First of all, the cinematography is gorgeous. With so many callbacks to the 80’s and that grainy overall design in picture quality, “Stranger Things” sets the tone accordingly with lots of panning shots that were well known for the time. The production team uses sharp lighting to coincide with the very feel of the antagonists, especially in the lab scenes, which involve a fine use of shadows and neon lighting to grasp the feeling that something is very wrong here. Even the opening credits take the time to set the mood for a very haunting bedtime story that while not always scary, does offer some solid frights along the way. There’s also a very faithful telling of the fashion trends and interiors for that time. The horror posters are a cool wink to anyone who knows where the very influences of this show are coming from, but my personal favorite is in the attention to detail that came with the television sets, cord style phones, and show vehicles that never tripped up once in presenting automobiles made circa 1983.

The music in this show is breathtaking. The Neo-synth pop score composed by Austin, Texas native band Survive constructs a beautiful nightmare that resonates within the walls of such a mysterious land and people within it go a long way in pacing the audience for what’s coming behind every discovery. Some of my personal favorites besides the opening credits launch, were that of the bicycle chase scene in episode six, as well as some of the soundtrack choices, which were very etched in 80’s radio favorites. “Should I Stay or Should I Go” By The Clash will never be looked at in the same light again. It is very haunting playing alongside the communication to this outside world known as The Upside Down. After 2015’s “It Follows” made 80’s cinema fun again, this musical score takes that concept to new heights, offering a pulsating thrill throughout eight episodes of advanced storytelling.

And what storytelling it is, with many television stages of adult and children crossing over to create a beautiful medium in between. The show is wise enough not to give away all of its answers within the opening season, and there’s plenty to feel satisfied with upon this initial offering. The monster is very creative, and the cast are given plenty to do. The series is mostly divided into three different protagonist story arcs; The adults (Led by David Harbour and Winona Ryder), The teenagers (Led by Charlie Heaton and Cara Buono), and the kids (Led by Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin). What’s great is that unlike most shows, The Duffer Brothers offer a comfortable compromise between the three groups to make them all equally interesting and important to the show’s unfolding mystery. Each group of the trilogy works on something different, and it never disturbs or interrupts the other, throwing off the continuous flow.

If I had one problem with the show, it’s in the fast paced editing during the monster scenes, which felt a little rushed. I understand the concept of not wanting to show much of the monster until the end of the season, but this choppy editing left me very underwhelmed at understanding what kind of force we’re dealing with here. It almost feels like everyone in the show knows what it is and I don’t, despite being right next to them through all of this chaos. It’s a small problem in a bigger and much greater delivery, but I feel like a little more wouldn’t have killed the momentum and intrigue that the audience had in these developments.

But leaps and bounds above everything else, the cast is by far the tastiest piece of entertaining pie from this eight course dinner. Very rarely are the kids the best part of any show, but the chemistry and comedic charisma to bounce well off of each other was evident. There are more than a few lines which gave me whole-hearted laughter without ever ruining the chilling tone of the forefront. Millie Bobby Brown steals the show, giving an adult performance for such a tender age of 14. A lot of the audience’s interest relies on her delivery, and I could never get enough of the way fear overcomes her in every scene. She’s got a lot of secrets within her powerful capabilities, but still very vulnerable with what she sees that no one else can or has. My favorite character though, was definitely David Harbour’s Police chief Jim Hopper. With any character who has a regretful past, you always feel great empathy for that character, but Harbour takes it one step further with the eerie coincidences that this small town now faces that relates eerily to what his deceased daughter went through. This feels like a second chance for Hopper, and he decides early on that he has to make the most of it. It’s nice to see Harbour in a main role for once, as he’s usually the villain in every movie he’s in.

“Stranger Things” achieves even higher heights within the Netflix realm that has already triumphed so much in changing how we view television shows. It’s a well paced, beautifully constructed throwback chiller that will bring horror and Sci-Fi fans together for eight episodes of sheer brilliance. “Stranger Things” has happened before, but its compelling storytelling offers viewers a nostalgic piece of fantasy that will call back to the days of being a kid again.

9/10