Like a virus, the evil in Hawkins is back, in a new twist. Stranger Things makes the joke itself in the first season since Corona, as always with fine self-mockery and awareness of how current references can be woven into the eighties. Since 2019, fans of the cute and scary series have had to be patient. Here it is, season 4, and the start is overshadowed by the school massacre of an 18-year-old in Texas that killed 21 people. Because the first episode shows an act of violence that also kills children, Netflix broadcasts a warning in the United States.
So back is the “Dungeons & Dragons” playing nerd troupe around Will, Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who escaped from the laboratory, unspeakably called Elfi in the German version. She is the strongest foe in the shadowy world of Hawkins and, like her friends, arrived in her prime: 1986, Eleven, who moved to California at the end of last season with Will and his mother Joyce (Winona Ryder), is in a normalcy of perm, Love letters and school problems arrived. It doesn’t stop there, the evil in Hawkins takes on more and more brutal features.
Netflix sells “Stranger Things” as a horror series. That’s not all
Stranger Things runs on Netflix as a horror series, but combines everything from comic feel-good retro to splatter. This time the series is clearly psychological, dealing with the trauma of the residents of Hawkins and bringing back the past and almost forgotten protagonists. New is the lovable teenager Eddie (Joseph Quinn), who takes the first victim as the “Upside Down” and becomes the responsible Satanic disciple. The story also leads to Russia this time.
Six years have passed since the first season became a worldwide success and made its protagonists world stars. There are only three in the series, Will, who was swallowed up in the underworld at the time, was 12. The fact that the boys and girls are supposed to be 15 now isn’t something you really buy from the actors, and you don’t have to be either. They have grown big, one can be happy like an aunt. This allegedly penultimate season has become very big at all. It still offers good entertainment and skilfully set horror, but also threatens to get tangled up in the network of characters and plot. The elaborately staged battle scenes and expensive-looking computer animations only make up for this to a limited extent. According to the Wall Street Journal, the season’s budget is $30 million per episode.
The creators of the series, twin brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, have not only made the episodes more expensive, but also longer and longer. They are 75 minutes, some over 90 minutes long, and actually films in their own right. The season will be released in two halves, the second on July 1st. Stranger Things originally won hearts without all the pomp, as a charming horror story starring a bunch of Midwestern kids. You miss that a bit in season four.
Stranger Things, on Netflix.
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