Something Wicked, Something Great

A quaint, Midwestern town. Some kids, just old enough to begin to understand the adult world, yet young enough that they’ve not yet left the trappings of childhood completely behind. A sinister, otherworldly threat, the reality of which only children seem able to perceive, while their elders are blind to it.

Such are the makings of a certain kind of story very popular nowadays. For such a tale, steeped in nostalgia yet reinforced by horror, the creative possibilities are vast indeed. The Duffer Brothers have given us one example, via Stranger Things. Before that was the Goonies/E.T./Gremlins aesthetic of the Spielberg/Amblin 1980s, from which Stranger Things itself draws much inspiration. In literature, there were the dark imaginings of Stephen King, in works such as It.

A quaint, Midwestern town. Some kids, just old enough to begin to understand the adult world, yet young enough that they’ve not yet left the trappings of childhood completely behind. A sinister, otherworldly threat, the reality of which only children seem able to perceive, while their elders are blind to it.

Such are the makings of a certain kind of story very popular nowadays. For such a tale, steeped in nostalgia yet reinforced by horror, the creative possibilities are vast indeed. The Duffer Brothers have given us one example, via Stranger Things. Before that was the Goonies/E.T./Gremlins aesthetic of the Spielberg/Amblin 1980s, from which Stranger Things itself draws much inspiration. In literature, there were the dark imaginings of Stephen King, in works such as It.