54 Things That Inspired Stranger Things To Keep You Occupied Until Season 4, Part 2 Drops
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Binged Stranger Things Season 4, Part 1, and don’t know what to do with yourself until Part 2 drops in July? Well, whack some Kate Bush on and hunker down, because I’ve rounded up a whole bunch of things that the show creators, cast, and crew have said aided them in bringing the story to life.
All of the following works of art have influenced the show in some way, so if you choose to watch, read, play, or listen to any of them, you should be able to feel those Stranger Things vibes and give yourself that little hit to tide you over until the next episodes drop!
🚨WARNING: Spoilers for all seasons ahead, so read at your own discretion! 🚨
1.Movie: Batman (1989)
2.Card game: Magic: The Gathering
A young Ross and Matt Duffer based their first feature-length film on Magic: The Gathering, a trading card game focusing on wizards and magic that they were totally obsessed with.
This film was made before they hit middle school, and is, in their words “pretty unwatchable”, but there’s no doubt that young Will, Dustin, Lucas, and Mike would totally try their hand at Magic: The Gathering, which has been dubbed the 1990s answer to Dungeons & Dragons!
Apparently, the Duffers’ film featured Matt as a dwarf with a cotton beard, Ross as a knight, and their friend Tristan as a paladin on a journey through the woods. One of them was a villain with a skull mask on, and in Ross’s words: “it was mostly us whacking each other with swords with Danny Elfman music playing in the background.”
I mean, I kinda wanna see this! Shall I start a petition?!
3.Book: Carrie by Stephen King (1974)
The works of Stephen King helped the young Duffer brothers develop a fascination with darker storytelling, which would come full circle when King himself tweeted his praise of Stranger Things in the early days after the release of Season 1!
Carrie is a pretty obvious parallel to Stranger Things in many ways; a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and an abusive parental figure. When pushed too far, Carrie unleashes all her powers on her tormentors, much like Eleven.
Also, the Rink-O-Mania scene in Season 4, Part 1, when bully Angela throws a milkshake on Eleven is super similar to the pig blood at the prom scene in Carrie.
There have been several movie adaptations of Carrie, but the Duffers specifically mentioned the book as a source of inspiration.
4.Movie: Scream (1996)
5.Movie: Evil Dead (1981)
6.Movie: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
7.Book and movie: The Shining by Stephen King (1977/1980 respectively)
8.Movie: The Thing (1982)
9.Movie: Altered States (1980)
10.Movie: Alien (1979)
11.Movie: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
12.Movie: Jaws (1975)
13.Movie and book: Firestarter (1980/1984 respectively)
14.Movie: Poltergeist (1982)
15.Movie and book: The Dead Zone (1979/1983 respectively)
16.Book: Different Seasons (1982)
This collection of four novellas by horror icon Stephen King includes Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil, The Body, and The Breathing Method.
All of these novellas have either been adapted into movies already or are in development. Apt Pupil was made into a 1998 adaptation of the same name, while Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’s adaptation was called — you guessed it — The Shawshank Redemption. The Breathing Method has been in development since 2019 for a movie release of the same name.
As for The Body, its adaptation was called Stand By Me, which we’ll get to next…
17.Movie and book: Stand By Me (1982/1986 respectively)
18.Movie and book: IT (1986/1990 respectively)
19.Movie: The Sixth Sense (1999)
20.Movie: Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
21.Movies: The work of Guillermo del Toro
22.Movie and book: The Silence of the Lambs
23.Video game: Silent Hill (1999)
24.The work of John Carpenter
25.Movie: Breaking Away (1979)
26.Game: Dungeons and Dragons
27.Comic: X-Men #134
We all know the Stranger Things boys are comic book fans, but there’s a strong X-Men thread running through the show from Season 1 to Season 4 so far. Eddie’s Dungeons & Dragons club is called Hellfire Club, and in the X-Men comics, the Hellfire Club kidnap Jean Grey and corrupts her, turning her into their weapon — a vastly powerful supervillain known as Dark Phoenix.
Eleven experiences similar — she is hugely powerful and pursued by people with sinister intentions attempting to use her powers as a conduit for their own bidding. Perhaps Stranger Things’ Hellfire Club will also search for Eleven, but use her powers for good.
This nod to X-Men is further solidified if you cast your mind all the way back to Season 1, where Will wins Dustin’s X-Men issue 134 — the very comic where the X-Men fight the Hellfire Club.
Dustin also mentions using “Cerebro” to tap into the Hawkins PD dispatch and find out if they’re looking for Eddie. Cerebro is what Professor Charles Xavier uses in the X-Men stories to concentrate his powers in order to find other mutants to help.
28.Movie: Gremlins (1984)
29.Movie: The Goonies (1985)
30.Movie: First Blood (1982)
31.Movie: Arrival (2016)
32.The work of John Hughes
33.Book and movie: The Lord of the Rings (1954/2001 respectively)
34.The work of Carl Sagan
35.The work of Marsha Mason
36.Movie: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974)
37.Movie: The Exorcist (1973)
38.Leading men from the '80s
When looking for inspo for the character Jim Hopper, David Harbour turned to actors of the '80s who played memorable characters with a rugged edge.
He said: “I grew up watching those movies that this series is an homage to, and the leading guys, even a little bit before that time, were all the dudes who taught me how to become a man, what it is to be a man.
These guys like Harrison Ford, or Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Nick Nolte. I was looking at movies about cops that are a little bit messed up and have to go into a situation that makes them face their biggest flaw."
Incidentally, some of Harbour’s inspirations played roles in films that influenced the Duffer brothers when writing Stranger Things, namely Jack Nicholson in The Shining and Roy Scheider in Jaws.
Scheider’s Jaws on-screen attire also inspired the show’s costume designer Kimberly Adams, who loved the way that Scheider’s chief had a different uniform from the rest of his staff.
She said: “That felt so right for Hopper to not be the same as his guys, to make it more small-town, not so perfect.”
39.Music: Cliff Martinez’s Drive score (2011)
40.Music: The song “Dirge” by Survive
41.Movie: The Road (2009)
42.Movie: Stalker (1979)
43.Book: Paradise Lost (1667)
The Demogorgon is synonymous with Stranger Things, but it actually appears in 17th-century poet John Milton’s work.
That’s not the first mention of a Demogorgon either - the first mention seems to be in Statius’s Thebaid from c. 350–400 CE. However, John Milton’s work is credited as one of the inspirations for the Duffers’ Demogorgon, which, in Paradise Lost, was a fearsome demon.
44.Movie: The Fog (1980)
45.Movie and book: Under the Skin (2013)
46.The work of George Romero
47.Movie: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
48.Movie: Super 8 (2011)
49.The work of Drew Struzan
50.Famous movie villains
51.The music of bands Sunn O))), Carpathian Forest, and Mayhem
52.Anime/manga: Elfen Lied (2002/2004 respectively)
53.Movie: Prisoners (2013)
54.Anime: Akira (1988)
I could honestly write all day about this! There are so, so many influences and inspirations behind Stranger Things, which is a beautiful tapestry of all the favorites from the cast and crew of the show. There are undoubtedly hundreds of threads in this tapestry, and I feel like I notice more and more every time I watch.
Which references or influences have you noticed when watching Stranger Things? Let me know in the comments!
Note: Information and quotes on the Duffer Brothers’ inspirations are from the book Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down by Gina McIntyre.
