★★★★☆
It’s spring break 1986 and the cute kids from the American science fiction show have almost grown up — zits, chest hair and all. But then so have its fans, allowing creators, the Duffer brothers to ramp up the scares in this brilliantly dark fourth series — conceived in 2019 but delayed thanks to Covid.
If the first seasons of Stranger Things nodded to ET the Extra-Terrestrial and Stand by Me, this one (which comes in two “volumes”, with staggered releases) genuflects to A Nightmare on Elm Street. If we were in any doubt, they have even cast Robert Englund, the actor who played Freddy Krueger.
The gang of teenagers has splintered — and there are some new faces. Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) has grown her hair and is the butt of Mean Girls-style bullying in California, where she is living with Joyce (Winona Ryder), Will (Noah Schnapp) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton). They are joined in the sunshine by new dude Argyle (Eduardo Franco), a pizza delivery driver who provides them with wheels, a Musical Youth soundtrack on his car stereo and this series’ only weakness — his irritating stoner schtick.
Back in Hawkins the rest of the original gang are no longer a unit. Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), still the court jester, and Mike (Finn Wolfhard, channelling Joey Ramone) have started at high school and are members of the Hellfire Club, a home for nerds, led by newbie Eddie (Joseph Quinn — excellent). Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin, sporting a natty flattop) has fallen in with a bunch of jocks, Nancy (Natalia Dyer) is a student journalist, Robin (Maya Hawke) and Steve (Joe Keery) are working in a video shop. Max (Sadie Sink), traumatised by her brother Billy’s death, is withdrawn and living in a trailer park.
It’s not long before the peril kicks in. Spoiler alert! Former Hawkins cop Hopper (David Harbour), presumed dead, remerges in a vicious Soviet prison, from which Joyce and the Russophile Murray (Brett Gelman) attempt to spring him. Eleven, who still assumes her proxy pop Hopper dead, is doubting her own moral centre — and who she trusts.
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Meanwhile, in Hawkins a schoolgirl starts having visions involving a grandfather clock and dies in bizarre circumstances, thanks to a humanoid monster called Vecna. But the town’s finger points to Eddie, this show’s Boo Radley. When Max begins to have dreams (Sink is superb) the kids realise the Upside Down is still imposing on their town, with Vecna making a beeline for the most vulnerable.
This leads our detective duo, Nancy and Robin, to a mental hospital to speak to Victor Creel (Englund), the only man who has ever survived an attack by Vecna. A Kate Bush song becomes an unlikely antidote to evil in a finale to volume one that had me in pieces.
Fans of the early series have nothing to worry about: Stranger Things still balances sweetness, laughs and horror like no other show — even if the scares have got jumpier.
Stranger Things, series four, volume one is on Netflix from May 27; volume two is from July 1
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