Stranger Things Season 4 Needs Fear Street’s Darker Edge

Stranger Things Season 4 Needs Fear Street’s Darker Edge

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Season 4 of Stranger Things needs to bring back impactful character deaths, something the Fear Street trilogy is proving to be adept at staging.

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Stranger Things Season 4 Needs Fear Street’s Darker Edge

Season 4 of Stranger Things should follow in the footsteps of fellow Netflix retro horror Fear Street and up the edginess of the series. When Stranger Things debuted in 2016, the series was an instant word-of-mouth hit for streaming service Netflix and its creators the Duffer Brothers. Despite some seriously dark moments in the show’s first season, it is easy to see why Stranger Things had massive mainstream appeal.

Stranger Things combined sci-fi horror with nostalgic coming-of-age dramedy in its story of a group of misfit kids from a small town accidentally uncovering a government conspiracy and attempting to escape an inter-dimensional monster. Add in an adorable but surprisingly powerful telekinetic kid heroine, and Stranger Things was all-but-guaranteed to be a success. However, despite all its flashier elements, Stranger Things season 1 took inspiration from the dark kidnapping drama Prisoners, and the show’s early episodes were often brutal and bleak.

After all, Stranger Things takes place in small-town America during the ‘80s, and its location of Hawkins, Indiana is home to many shuttered shopfronts, closed-down factories, and other signifiers of Reagan-era economic hardship. Stranger Things did not shy away from the darker side of the decade in its first season and the show’s tone reflected this, with innocent characters often being butchered in early episodes. However, as Stranger Things reached its third season, the show’s tone took a swift shift into broad comedy territory, and despite a rising body count, the series started taking things much less seriously. A plethora of goofy subplots soon became the weak point of Stranger Things season 3, which is why the series would do well to learn from the critical success of Netflix’s recent Fear Street trilogy and bring back some darker edge to season 4.

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Stranger Things Seasons 1 & 2 Took No Prisoners

Stranger Things Season 4 Needs Fear Street’s Darker Edge

Early on in proceedings, Stranger Things was a pretty unsparing series, with the season 1 finale seeing Eleven fell slews of government agents to save her friends. Meanwhile, earlier episodes saw said agents killing off civilians with little pause, including a diner proprietor whose only crime was housing the lost, hungry Eleven. Fan-favorite Stranger Things supporting star Barb was infamously offed unceremoniously despite being well-behaved Final Girl material, and even season 2 of the series mercilessly killed off poor family man and all-around good guy Bob Newby. Stranger Things season 2 did feature more comic relief than its predecessor and a faster pace, but the show’s mean streak was still in full effect and no character was too nice to be offed out of nowhere, a quality that the series lost in season 3.

Fear Street’s Edge Serves A Thematic Purpose

Stranger Things Season 4 Needs Fear Street’s Darker Edge

Throughout the trilogy, the Fear Street movies have featured constant injections of sudden, brutally bleak violence, but the killings always serve a clear thematic purpose. When Fear Street 1978’s killer chops through a pile of likable campers only to leave the snide, bullying rich kids alive, for example, it is to reinforce that the town of Shadyside and its citizens are constantly mistreated and under-resourced. The trilogy’s setting is home to a lot of dreamers who want to escape their dead-end town and know how unlikely this is, and the tragedy of both Fear Street and Stranger Things is that many of its cast don’t survive to see a brighter future. Fear Street’s recurring theme of communities being disenfranchised is touched on throughout Stranger Things, too, with a corrupt mayor, downright evil government, and amoral corporations leaving the town penniless and without prospects.

It is easy, with all of the subplots going on, to forget that even season 3 of Stranger Things reinforces this idea that Hawkins is a pit of ever-diminishing promise. The town sheriff spends season 3 harassing his love interest, threatening his adopted daughter’s boyfriend, and drunk driving (and he is the show’s hero), while the Mayor is in bed with (at best) shady corporate interests, and is happy to lease land to the highest bidder despite this gutting the local economy. Cary Elwes’ sleazy mayor may end season 3 beaten up by Hopper, but he still comes to represent the dearth of opportunity available to the teen heroes of Stranger Things when they grow up, something that is even more clearly illustrated in seasons 1 and 2 by the show killing off even the most likable characters.

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Hawkins and Shadyside Are Similar Settings

Stranger Things Season 4 Needs Fear Street’s Darker Edge

Both Hawkins and Shadyside are towns where job opportunities are non-existent, business is dwindling, families fall apart, and life is surprisingly cheap despite their Amblin-esque outward appearance. They are bleak depictions of small-town 80s Americana and the frequent, brutal violence of their horror stories reflects that — or at least in the case of Stranger Things, it used to. Despite the show killing off plenty of characters (like the loathsome local newspaper staff) Stranger Things season 3 reduced the gravitas of death on the series, with only minor, hate-worthy, or background characters being killed off and the only death of apparent plot significance (Hopper’s) being an obvious fake-out.

Stranger Things Needs To Give Death Gravitas

Although season 3 of Stranger Things did boast a high body count, with shopping montages set to Madonna’s “Material Girl” and a goofy subplot about a Soviet spy learning the joys of Independence Day carnivals, it’s fair to say the series also featured a far lighter tone than earlier seasons. The dead characters were either nameless henchmen like the Soviet soldiers Hopper kills or cartoonish bad guys like the Hawkins Post staff, resulting in a lack of impact for the show’s deaths. Stealing a page from Fear Street’s darkest moments, Stranger Things season 4 should return to killing off fan-favorite characters to establish stakes in the show and remind viewers of how grim life in its small-town setting is. Part of what makes the Fear Street trilogy so critically acclaimed is the fact that the movies are unafraid of depicting bad things happening to good people, and illustrating the reality of life in its setting as a result. Stranger Things season 1 and 2 proved the Netflix hit could do the same, and season 4 should see the show return to this darker tone.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/stranger-things-4-copy-fear-street-trilogy-dark-tone-deaths/

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