Stranger Things Review

For my second television review, I picked the new Netflix series Stranger Things. Haven’t seen it yet? IMDB describes it as:

“When a young boy disappears, his mother, a police chief, and his friends must confront terrifying forces in order to get him back.”

I was impressed with the show. However, surprisingly the one actress whose name drew me to watch it in the first place, Winona Ryder, turned out to be me least favorite character. This isn’t to say she didn’t do a good job. She did, but her characters often seem to be quirky and this one is no different.

The first season of the show was great, the perfect amount of mystery combined with sci-fi thrills and suspense. Think Hitchcock meets Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or if you’re a reader, this would certainly fall into Stephen King’s realm. In fact, Stephen King and others tweeted about the series, giving it two thumbs up, as reported on IndieWire. Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t necessarily a space series. It’s a different type of science fiction. (I don’t want to say too much and give things away.) However, the pacing, development, and effects are subtle and well done without going overboard, much like the skills Hitchcock and Spielberg built careers on. Matt and Ross Duffer did a great job, and I will be keeping an eye on their future work.

My only complaint was about a couple of the unrealistic D&D scenes, but I feel that can be excused. As a gamer myself, role-playing is a lot of fun, but it’s not very cinematic or exciting for viewers. However, adjusting the game play for the series could have been done better.

Overall, I highly recommend Stranger Things for fans of the paranormal, small town horror stories, and science fiction.

Stranger Things: 5 Stars

Weston Kincade ~ Author of the A Life of Death collection, The Priors, and Strange Circumstances