Stranger Things, the new original series by game-changing streaming service Netflix can only be described as a delightful throwback to the eighties. Starring award winning actress Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers, who is settled in a small town, circa 1983, it pays homage to a time when sci-fi continued to inspire a curious audience.
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Instep takes a close look at the thrilling new Netflix original series.
Stranger Things, the new original series by game-changing streaming service Netflix can only be described as a delightful throwback to the eighties. Starring award winning actress Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers, who is settled in a small town, circa 1983, it pays homage to a time when sci-fi continued to inspire a curious audience.
The cinematography also seems to resemble another ‘80s production of the same name. The show captures the essence of the Roswell era and the unsettling sense of supernatural that suggested rather than showed.
The show revolves around a varied cast including Joyce’s 12-year-old son, Will, who goes missing, which propels a terrifying investigation into his disappearance with local authorities. As they search for answers, they unravel a series of extraordinary mysteries involving secret government experiments, unnerving supernatural forces, and a very unusual little girl.
Rated 90 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes and 75 on Metacritic, this is one of the most acclaimed shows to be aired by Netflix this season. It’s developed a cult following, not unlike one commanded by another Netflix hit, Narcos while others have compared the adrenaline rush the show provides with that of House of Cards, the show which put Netflix on the map with its Machiavellian protagonists.
Stranger Things is full of nostalgic moments including round dial phones, walkie-talkies and analogue cameras, so if you’re a retro junkie, this is the show to watch.
The plot-line itself could have been a hit novel by Stephen King from the same decade. Imagine E.T crossed with IT, the story is replete with a faceless monster, precocious high schoolers who seem unfazed by even the most gruesome monster and a twelve year old girl with large, soulful eyes that seem to bore into you and super powers that seem reminiscent of Professor X from X-Men.
Stranger Things is fun for almost all the family, depending on your cohorts’ response to occasional gory scenes. It’s fast paced and the series is about 8 episodes long and ends neatly, with the audience waiting for more, without using the cliff-hanger troupe.
All the necessary ingredients are here: spooky woods, walkie-talkies as the bleeding edge of technology, nosebleeds as a sign of violent mental effort, lost spirits communicating through mains electricity and crackling phone-lines, elasticated walls through which desperate hands and screaming faces push and plain friends doomed to bloody deaths in the furtherance of the plot.
