New Netflix show mixes Spielberg and John Carpenter- Interview

Stranger Things is a new Netflix show which releases on the 15th of July, and it's taking viewers back to the 80s.

It all unfolds in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana in 1983 as a group of schoolkids try to track down their missing friend. Other things are afoot too, including a mysterious local company, a distraight mother and a police chief caught up in a conspiracy.

There are many possible reference points for anything set in the 80s and creators Ross and Matt Duffer had plenty to draw on, settling for a mixture between the works of Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter and a few specific movies:

"For Spielberg I think it was E.T. and Jaws and Close Encounters and then The Goonies which he produced."

They also decided that the three sets of protagonists in the film were taking part in their own movie within certain genres, again informed by the 80s:

"We sort of have three different generations – there are kids and then teens and adults. And we broadly speaking envision them in one of these types of movies.For the teens they’re more in a classic horror film; John Carpenter’s stuff like Halloween or Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street. That’s where the teens live. For the kids it’s more the adventure thing, like The Goonies or Stand by Me. And then the adults are a bit more in the classic Spielberg movies like Close Encounters where they’re slowly coming to realise that something extraordinary is happening around them and the sense of wonder that provokes. So that was what we were trying to do. Those are some of the big touchstones for us."

It's an interesting way to think of the show, and it definitely makes more and more sense as the episodes progress towards a pretty spectacular finale. Could this be your next binge watch?

All eight episodes of Stranger Things will be available exclusively on Netflix from the 15th of July, 2016.