Stranger Things writers created a 25-page document to explain the show's history

Virgin Radio

19 May 2022, 15:55

Season 4 of Stranger Things is coming soon, and the show's creators had to create a guide for Netflix.

In a new interview with NME, co-creator Matt Duffer confessed that mid-way through season one, show bosses at Netflix were a little confused about the background of Eleven and co.

“Halfway through writing season one Netflix said, ‘Can you just explain the mythology to us?’”

He continued: “So we sat down with our writers and wrote this 25-page document and ever since we’ve been peeling back the layers of that.”

They now found it was the right time to reveal more information: “Because those answers lie in the past, some of them really go back to when Eleven was in Hawkins Lab and her storyline, so we really wanted to go back there and explore that.”

They also revealed the horror films that inspire them: “The biggest influences would probably be A Nightmare On Elm Street One and Three, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, weirdly The Cell, with Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughn,” says Ross. “There’s IT too. The mini-series from 1990 with Tim Curry’s Pennywise scarred us, maybe more than anything else, so we talked about that a lot and why that messed us up as much as it did.”'

They say that Season 5 will be "crazier" than ever.

"Typically in the previous seasons, everything wraps up in a nice bow,” Matt Duffer explains. “Four and five are really [connected] together. [With five], there’ll be no wind-up time – like even this season, you get to experience the kids and what they’re going through in high school before things start to escalate.

"Then it gets crazier and crazier and crazier – that’s typically the trajectory. Five, you’re just going to be right in the middle of it so it’s going to feel very, very different.

As for how it's going to end?

They're giving nothing away: “We do have an end. I’m sure a lot of it’s going to change, but now [it’s] the end," says Matt. "It’s just one of those things that you come up with and you go, ‘That’s it, that’s right, that’s inevitable – that’s what it has to be’.”