Charlie Heaton said last week when he visited Spain to present the fourth season of ‘Stranger Things’, that if the first was a tribute to films like ‘The Goonies’ or ‘Count on me’, this new installment is seen in ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’. It’s a perfect summary.
‘Stranger Things’ has never been one to hide its references. What’s more, often the display and exhibition of music, clothing, toys and knickknacks from the eighties was stifled as excessive, as if the creators were showing the viewer an album of stickers in which to recognize their childhood or, rather, the childhood that he sucked through movies like ‘ET, the extraterrestrial’ or ‘The secret of the pyramid’. And in that sense it is fair to point out that the Duffer brothers, creators of fiction, no longer seem so obsessed with completing that catalog of eighties culture. Although the references are still there, they no longer act just as winks, without rhyme or reason, but they have a meaning.
The new season of ‘Stranger Things’, organized in nine episodes, arrives divided into two parts. The first, with seven chapters, will be released this Friday, May 27; while for the second, with the remaining two, we will have to wait until July 1. The series has already been in the news, even before its premiere, due to the duration of its episodes -the last chapter reaches 2 and a half hours, but most are over an hour and a quarter-. In short, there are more than twelve hours of season. Noticeable? The short answer is yes. The series takes more time to outline its characters, although it does not always do it well -surprisingly, some of them are so blurred that they have almost no reason to be, as we will see later-, develop the dialogues and enhance the atmosphere of mystery. And yes, there is also a certain feeling that the plots have been stretched, but there is a point that plays in favor of excess footage: three years ago the public had not been able to connect with the kids from Hawkins, who premiered their last season in June of 2019. So it is most likely that the desire can with this terrible trend that for some time now has been experienced in the audiovisual industry.
Separated
The first volume of the new installment of ‘Stranger Things’ begins six months after the battle in the Hawkins shopping center, which brought so much destruction and terror to this town in Indiana and which ended with the death of Max’s brother (Sadie sink). For the first time, the group of friends is divided and, in the same way, the plots are too. Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who no longer has powers, and the Byers family have left Hawkins and moved to Lenora Hills, California. There the young woman tries to go unnoticed under the name of Janet, along with Will (Noah Schnapp), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and her mother, Joyce (Winona Ryder), who makes a living selling encyclopedias over the phone. But for Eleven the reality of the institute is not making it easy for her. Some of the students have a thing for her and she pins her hopes on spring break, where after several months she will finally be able to see her boyfriend Mike de Ella, with whom she corresponds often.
In Hawkins, however, things remain more or less the same. Little Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) are already all teenagers and are immersed in a great role-playing game in ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ that is being directed by Eddie, an eccentric grade repeater, who is played by Joseph Quinn. , who, in addition to playing in a rock band, deals in drugs. Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), for his part, has joined the high school basketball team and seems to have less and less time for his old friends. Immersed in mourning is Max, who was his ex. Broken by the death of his brother, she relies on the music of her walkman to spend a few days that are becoming more and more difficult for her. The long-distance relationship between Jonathan and Nancy does not go through its best moment either. They won’t see each other in the spring because she has to work and he has to take care of his family and she’s waiting for the letter to see if he gets admitted to college. Meanwhile Steve (Joe Keery) and Robin (Maya Ray Thurman-Hawke) continue to work at the video store; the first, with an intense sexual life; the second, with difficulties in establishing a relationship with someone of the same sex whom he has already had his eye on.
This is how things stand when the new installment of the series begins, set in 1986, which once again takes Hawkins as the epicenter of horror. The clearest reference here, we insist, is that of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’, although there are also nods to other 80s horror slashers such as ‘Halloween’ or ‘Friday the 13th’. But it is in Wes Craven’s work that the Duffer brothers seem to look at each other with delight, and not only because Robert Englund, the actor who brought Freddy Krueger to life in eight films and a television series, has a role in the cast, but also because of the context and the way in which the victims die, in some cases almost traced. Craven came up with the story after reading in the newspaper that several people had died under mysterious circumstances in their sleep and he imagined some kind of boogeyman killing his victims in their dreams. He gave him a name, some blades in his right hand, a gnawed sweater and hat and imagined him with his face and body disfigured by a fire.
darker and scarier
In Hawkins there is also a bogeyman who, in addition to claws, has tentacles and takes advantage of the dark past of his victims to stalk them until it’s too late. Migraines and sleepless nights come first, then hallucinations, and finally nightmares. As ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ did, ‘Stranger Things’ plays at mixing reality and daydream, in a lower gear, of course, to instill confusion among viewers, who do not know what is real and what is not. Even musically, the synth notes are close to the childish, scratchy music that Charles Bernstein composed for Wes Craven’s film. Thus, the darkest and most terrifying installment of the series is fed. It is not terrifying, but those most prone to fright and fear will have a bit of a hard time. Despite this, there is still room for fantasy, adventure and humor, this last facet is very personified in the plot starring Joyce and Murray, who will follow a clue that Jim Hopper (David Harbour) could be alive. The fourth is also the most raw and visceral installment. It starts with a trail of dead children and has some violent sequences that take it away from what should initially be a family series.
But the most surprising thing about these new episodes of ‘Stranger Things’ is their great technical bill and their visual exquisiteness. The photography of this new season is the most cinematographic of all and verges on the sublime, as well as the forceful special effects. This is undoubtedly helped by the varied plots set in different geographical locations, but also by the good planning behind some action sequences, with the most spectacular, most dynamic and best chosen shootouts and escapes. The thirty million that the Wall Street Journal says that each episode has cost is noticeable, go.
It is not, yes, without faults. We have already talked about its excessive footage, but perhaps the most serious thing is that one has the feeling that they do not know what to do with so many characters. Eleven and Mike are still the main protagonists, but this time Nancy is planted as the main engine of the investigation to try to stop this particular boogeyman. It is also interesting the duel that Max goes through who, like Lucas, is moving away from his friends, or the excellent comic couple that Steve and Dustin continue to form -it is incredible how good actors Joe Keery and Gaten Matarazzo are-. However, at least in the first six episodes of the season, it’s hard to find the reason for Jonathan, Will or Robyn… If even Eddie, who is new, has more relevance! Nothing to do with Argyle, Jonathan’s new friend, even less interesting than this.
Eleven, accompanied by Will, Mike, Jonathan and Argyle.
Thus, ‘Stranger Things’ has chosen to get closer to terror and fear to continue dealing with issues that had already been touched on in previous installments such as friendship, the transition from childhood to adolescence, grief or mourning. At the same time, the series talks about issues that concern and affect the young and not so young, such as bullying, long-distance relationships, the burdens of the past, prejudice and even the need that we all have at times to build a alternative and idyllic reality -did someone say social networks?- compared to the terrible day to day. A day to day where the villain is not a monster, but the captain of the basketball team or the gang of brats in the class. We didn’t remember how much we missed her.
The first volume of the fourth season of ‘Stranger Things’ will be available on Netflix on May 27.
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