What if "strange things" were based on nostalgia for other decades?



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The third season of Strange things debuted on Netflix on 4th July, and, wow, it's more 80s than ever. Neon colors, noisy hairstyles and downtown-style décor all evoke a time that Generation X members fondly recall and Millennials can absorb by proxy. The creators of the series, The Duffer Bros., were born in 1984 and drew inspiration from their experiences watching 1980s movies as Fighting spirit, E.T .: The alien, The Goonies, ghost huntersand a crowd of others. The nostalgia of the 1980s is, of course, very fashionable in 2019, and the media of the decade are generally experiencing a glorious resurgence in the horror market (how many recent independent horror movies do they have? like John Carpenter – more than a few).

But the current mass media culture of the eighties must be ephemeral, by its very nature, and our nostalgia will certainly recover after a number of years. This naturally leaves the curious mind wander about what Strange things could look like it was based in horror nostalgia for other decades. After all, each decade is full of rich horror traditions and each could easily be a Strange things-like series to itself. Since we are all curious here, let's go ahead and lead this thought experiment, are we going?


We start with Strange things in the 1930s…

Strange things the 1930s should look like it was produced by Carl Laemmle, Jr., and directed by James Whale. This would be a 65-minute movie version of Strange thingsand would feature a group of young people; students, but played by actors in their early forties. The characters, all squares and bland, would fall into a government-building like a castle – a sinister stone building lit by torches – in search of their missing friend, Will. Will's mother would be interpreted by a hysterical Una O'Connor. Instead, they would find Eleven (a Zita Johann of The Mummy-type) that is hidden there. Eleven would return to the European Duchy, would you learn on the way to humanity with an old wise scholar (like Boris Karloff), fall in love with a stiff-haired man of society, but end up nevertheless by start a psychic killing. Strange things would culminate in the laboratory where eleven was found, and she would be killed by a lightning bolt descending from a hole in the roof. The strength of the lightning would make Will reappear.


Strange things in the 1940s …

The horror trends of the 1940s were largely inspired by classical literature, as they largely mimicked the success of the horror films of the 1930s (Dracula, et al). As such, the 1940s Strange things would pay homage to producer Val Lewton and seem to be coming out of RKO. It would be inspired very directly by, for example, Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights. Located in Haiti, Eleven (Simone Simon type) is a local medium who runs his own business reading minds and floating objects for wealthy travelers. She is the analogue for Catherine. Will, a local bitter high in luxury and suffering from lung diseases, is the substitute of Heathcliff. Will's mother is, in this version of things, an embittered type of Miss Havisham (who, I know, is of Great expectations; do not me @). When Will is sucked into The Upside Down by an ancient local curse, Catherine is helpless and runs into Dustin's arms (a guy like Dwight Frye-in-his-final-role). Fast forward a generation and the girl of Eleven, also psychic, is good for the less bitter son of Will. Will will come back just in time to witness the intergenerational reconciliation. The last shot is a Demogorgon eating Will.


Strange things in the 1950s…

The supreme shock of our time! Teenagers in trouble! Girls give in to temptation! The nuclear threat producing monsters never seen before in the history of cinema! The 1950s Strange things would be made on a restricted budget and evoke the work of Tarantula! director Jack Arnold. Located in a small town, the main children would certainly be high school students (played by actors in their thirties) who go to the drive-in and race in town with their hot rods. One of their races causes Will to fall in a large nuclear facility, making it disappear. The radiation from the accident brought their friend Florence to develop psychic powers. She was kidnapped and incarcerated. It's up to Mike to lead the gang in the establishment. They have a Demogorgon as watchdog and it is played by a crew member wearing an unconvincing rubber jumpsuit. The film ends with a big explosion and many footage from the army archives. Much is happening in Strange thingsbut it's still boring. Several generations later, in an epilogue, the hipsters will find it on a box of DVD 50 in one at Best Buy.


Foreigns in the 1960s …

Inspired by Mario Bava, the 1960s version of Strange things would be ultra-colored, would include a soundtrack of electric jazz, would run in Europe and would be dubbed in English. The psychic powers would be represented by long hallucinatory sequences placed in an underground rave. The rave would be Upside Down, and the main kids all go there regularly. Will takes acid and sees that he can not leave. The Demogorgon is a dumb human man played by a type of Joe Dallessandro who occasionally appears in a monster makeup. A vampire woman sometimes appears in dream sequences. It's eleven. All scenes outside Upside Down would be held in libraries and dormitories where children would wear turtlenecks and smoke cigarettes. The theme song would evoke the work of The Cyrkle or another 1960s psychedelic rock band.


Strange things in the 1970s…

In the 1970s, horror trends were everywhere. There were early slashers, a lot of satanic panic, freak-outs inspired by drugs, experimental art house prices, and huge horror-like blockbusters like L & # 39; Exorcist and Jaws. It follows logically that the 1970s Strange things would pay homage to everything. The main children would be, basically, all Tommy Doyle's Halloweenhelpless to watch their teenage counterparts be murdered for various reasons. The Upside Down is indeed a dark dimension of the monsters, but also the source of the demons that can own your body. When Will is here, it's black and white, industrial and very Eraserhead-inspired. Barb, meanwhile, is hunted by a masked killer. Eleven lives the story of Carrie White almost identically, until her mother calls an exorcist. The whole season takes place at Christmas and in a German dance studio with witches. The main witch is a transvestite extraterrestrial.


Strange things in the 1990s…

By the end of the 1980s, the slasher genre was rampant, a general cultural cynicism reigned and the wonders of Spielberg's successes crumbled to the ground with misfires such as Hook. The horror began to move away from fantastic supervillains, serial killers and thrillers. Metatext has also become the talk of the day, and the decade has seen a multitude of conscious horror films like Wes Craven's new nightmare, In the mouth of madnessand of course Yell. As such the 1990s Strange things should be about the writers of Strange things locked in a room, trying to find as many references from the 80s as possible. We see the characters playing the story of Strange things as it appears on Netflix, but with interjections and comments on what is referenced. Instead of the last episode, however, writers are attacked and killed by Demogorgon.


Strange things in the 2000s…

It would be a feature film found, natch. Also in Japanese. And there would be at least eight horribly horrible torture scenes. Lots of blood, viscera and bone marrow. And, as the horror movies of the 2000s were nihilist so aggressively, none of the characters would survive. But photography would be pictorial and smooth and beautiful.

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