The Stranger Things cast lists the movies that shaped season 4

Every level is infused with nostalgia Stranger Things. In the first season, it was impossible to not notice how each group — the kids, the teens, and the adults — were all trapped in a different 1980s horror plot only for all three strands to merge into one climactic battle.

Ross Duffer (creator) and Matt Duffer (creator) have worn their influence on their sleeves ever since. The cast of Stranger ThingsThe twin authors have started writing to their strengths, too.

“We never really got assigned any homework, because I think at this point the Duffers know us super well,” Finn Wolfhard said in a roundtable with the Stranger Things cast. “I think they’d have to throw us a gigantic curveball in order for us to do some different stuff.”

The cast did mention some of their influences for season 4. At a press event, Polygon spoke with Polygon. Stranger Things 4They shared with them the movie ideas that the Duffer Brothers had while they were creating the fourth season.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Image from New Line Home Video

Perhaps the most obvious of the horror films referenced, Wes Craven’s 1984 classic was “definitely discussed,” per Natalia Dyer, who plays Nancy on Stranger Things.

“They love the genre and all these stories that they draw from,” Dyer said. “I think the brothers are pretty open with their references and their ideas.”

You can’t see the details of the connection, but suffice it for now to note that the show was embracing its horror roots as soon as the second episode ends. However the clearest connection isn’t a secret: Robert Englund, the original Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street, plays Victor Creel, “a disturbed and intimidating man who is imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital for a gruesome murder in the 1950s.”

But Stranger Things isn’t just pulling from the first Elm Street movie. There are also quite some references. Nightmare on Elm Street 4, The Dream Master. Vecna has his own version of Freddy’s Nightmare Church in the Dream World, and Eleven and her superpowers have quite a few similarities to Alice, one of the protagonists of The Dream Master.

Carrie

Image by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

The Duffer Brothers often talk about the importance of inspiration. Carrie They were there when Eleven came along.

In a video for Wired from 2019, the pair said, “Of course, you have a high school girl who has these amazing powers and these amazing abilities, and we always looked at how King dealt with that when we’ve talked about Eleven. This idea that she has these amazing abilities, but is she ultimately dangerous?”

However, this season the Duffers experiment with this concept a lot more than usual. It almost feels like we are seeing the opposite. Carrie story. Rather than a bullied girl who discovers her powers, Eleven starts the season as a bullied girl who’s just lost the powers that used to protect her.

Indiana Jones

Image: Paramount Home Entertainment

There are other locations in the globe of Stranger Things 4Joyce (Winona Ryder), and Murray (Brett Gelman), are on a trek behind the Iron Curtain in order to save Chief of Police Jim Hopper. This plot leads to some action-movie adventure that leaves from Stranger Things’ horror influences.

“A lot of it feels very like Indiana Jones to me,” Gelman told Polygon during a virtual set visit last year, describing his character’s upcoming arc. “The way that it’s constantly balancing the tension of the adventure with humor.”

The Empire Strikes Back

Lucasfilm

Season 3 Stranger ThingsSeason 2 began with an upbeat tone that was noticeably different. Stranger Things 4The series promises to be darker than ever before. After the finale of season 3 and the death (presumptive) of both loved ones as well as adversaries, the Duffer Brothers turned to one the most popular sci-fi sequels for ideas.

“We talked a lot about The Empire Strikes Back, which is — maybe not now — but for a long time, it was the darkest movie in Star Wars,” series creator Matt Duffer said in an interview with IGN. “We talked a lot about that and wanting to capture that tone.”

Fear Street, 1978

Image courtesy of Netflix

While this wasn’t a clear point of reference for the Duffers — it was produced relatively concurrently with the production of season 4 — the shared casting of Sadie Sink (Max in Stranger ThingsZiggy and Ziggy 1978At the most, it helped Max get in the right mindset for next season. Max is put through a lot emotionally and physically. Stranger Things 4.

“I think the physicality of Fear Street really helped — just getting comfortable with a lot of stunt work and stuff in that realm,” Sink said.

Stoner movies

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Jonathan Heaton (Charlie Heaton), and his friend Argyle, (Eduardo Franco), are not immune to the horrors of Stranger Things 4 than their comrades, it’s clear that the two are more interested in taking it easy wherever possible — namely by getting high. They bring a bit of lighthearted comedy to the otherwise grim tales.

Franco and Heaton claimed that Duffers are cited Ridgemont High – Fast Times as an influence on the characters’ arc this season. It was something neither had ever seen. They instead drew more inspiration from stoner culture over the years.

“We didn’t sit down and be like, ‘Yo, let’s watch this and, like, try and copy this.’ But I think culturally, you were aware of those movies,” Heaton said. For him, that meant pulling from more than just the ’80s stoner canon and including things like Pineapple ExpressSeth Rogen movies more generally. With that, Heaton and Franco would find their dynamic, noting that “what we’d find funny on the day” tended to influence their performance.

Amores Perros

Lions Gate Films Home Entertainment

Perhaps the best example of the aforementioned is the Stranger Things cast. Wolfhard noted that while they weren’t hard-assigned to watch anything specific, the Duffers did play a specific scene from Alejandro González Iñárritu’s first film, Amores Perros.

“There’s a scene in the car [in episode 5] where we’re all together and it’s very tense. And the Duffer brothers really wanted me to watch this movie by Iñárritu,” Wolfhard said. “There’s a scene […] that’s very similar to the [Agent]Harmon scene at the rear of the truck. […] It’s really chaotic and there’s blood — and apparently they drew a lot of inspiration from the movie.”

Part 1 Stranger Things 4Netflix drops May 27th