’80s nostalgia is a genre of pop culture that’s so saturated, it seems impossible to escape.
All around us are remakes, reboots and revivals of life from a bygone era. One of cold war paranoia, bold neon pop music — screens dense with Steven Spielberg, Stephen King and John Carpenter. Netflix’s new eight-part thriller Stranger Things may not be the first to throw viewers back to this era, but it proves more effective than most in its execution. Series creators Matt and Ross Duffer haven’t just nailed the look of a prime ’80s classic, they strike a deeper connection.

Set in a small Indiana town in fall 1983, Stranger Things centers on the mysterious disappearance of a small boy named Will Byers and the many community members who fall into the resulting conspiracy. The boy’s best friends risk their lives to track him down. A small-town cop hits roadblocks as he chases disparate leads. His mother Joyce (Winona Ryder) descends into madness over the scant, subtle signs of her son’s survival. In the center is a small child with no past, identified only by the tattoo of the number eleven on her arm.
The resulting weave is the stuff memories are made of. The slice-of-life moments drive the audience back to a simpler time, before shocking them to adulthood with genuine horror. Stranger Times revives the feeling of watching The X-Files when you were just a tad too young for it, watching through a blanket in horror, but nonetheless entranced. Excellent cinematography, visual effects and smart editing are the key tools to this result, and also where The Duffer Brothers are wise enough to step away from retro trappings.
While the first handful of episodes in Stranger Things could be mistaken for a lost Spielberg film, the world onscreen starts to mutate in distinctly modern ways. Rather than treating the entire show as an ’80s time capsule, it uses that aesthetic as a sense of home. A calm center to which it can return after the darkness dissipates. Yet with each episode, that home gets further away from the viewer. It’s a smart use of nostalgia, a compliment that can’t quite be payed to the show’s script.
Clichés are a classic part of any ’80s thriller. After all, this is the era that invented the slasher flick — and heroes who are too moronic to run in any direction other than into a killer’s blade. Stranger Things never hits those comic levels, but its characters do have a frustrating habit of always making the wrong decision, keeping the action going for another hour of chills and thrills. The story of Stranger Things could be told in six hours by a more succinct team, but The Duffer Brothers are intent to make us linger in every moment. The result is a strong start with a long trail, hitting a climax that mostly satisfies.
Netflix has made a habit of releasing remarkable content on the regular, and Stranger Things is no different. It’s a wonderful tribute to the golden age of sci-fi thrills that emulates the highs and lows with no distinction.
Get some popcorn, a couple spookable friends and turn out all the lights. Stranger Things is an easy summer favorite.
Follow Chris Berg on Twitter @ChrisBerg25