I finally watched the first season of Stranger Things. Honestly, I think it would've been a difficult watch without company. I can't really see why this show became such a huge phenomenon. The premise isn't bad, but it takes far too long for anything exciting to actually happen.
The show has a very strong Stephen King's "It" vibe, but I don't think it reaches the same level. You've got children as the main characters, teenage crushes, a mysterious force terrorizing a small town, and, of course, those little bicycles. The thing is, King's horror isn't really about monsters themselves. What makes it frightening are the existential fears we're already familiar with: the inevitability of death, the helplessness of ordinary people against forces far greater than themselves, and incomprehensible entities beyond our control.
What made "It" so compelling was that Pennywise wasn't just a monster — he was an abstract entity that created a personal hell for each victim, something that couldn't simply be defeated. That's why the novel focused so much on the characters' emotions: every one of them had a unique nightmare tailored specifically to them.
In Stranger Things, on the other hand, there's a fairly concrete monster that receives surprisingly little screen time. Instead, we spend most of the season watching the characters deal with personal problems that rarely feel important or particularly engaging.
The female characters especially felt as though they existed mainly as rage bait. Nancy, for example, spends almost the entire season looking miserable, with permanently furrowed eyebrows as if her face has forgotten every other possible expression. It's hard to tell what the writers wanted her to be. She clearly seems intended as a sympathetic character, but she mostly comes across as whiny and not particularly bright. Eleven, meanwhile, seems to exist solely to suffer in every single scene, as if the directors personally had it out for her. Oddly enough, despite everything she goes through, I found it difficult to truly empathize with her.
I'd give the first season a 6/10. It's a decent one-time watch.
