Daily Recco, March 10: There are Stranger Things out there

If you are the kind of person who can watch a thriller that makes your guts crawl, you would like this. Netflix's Stranger Things is a nail biter that makes you wonder if a show like this would have at all been made in the era when the fortunes and fancies of television executives dealt death blows to potential cult shows.

How often would a show that can be described as part-supernatural thriller, part-children's adventure, part-crime drama and part-tribute to the 1980s be picked up by a mainstream network? Stranger Things is all those things and more, bolstered enormously by great filmmaking that makes it truly immersive.

The show is set in the fictional town of Hawkins in the US Midwest state of Indiana. It begins with a gripping storyline around the disappearance of a local middle-school boy named Will, and the attempts to find him not only by his mother and the police but also by his three best friends. They are aided in their quest by a mysterious young girl who has some (um?) superpowers. A local facility supposedly run by the US government features prominently, in what is perhaps a hat-tip to common 1980s storylines about secret government research projects.

There is really nothing new about the feeling that the show immerses viewers in, given that most would be familiar with films that came out of the US in the 1980s. What does catch on however is the gripping nature of the story that is told through characters across a wide range of age groups. The show has run three seasons so far and filming is in full swing for a fourth season.

Difficult as it is to write about a show like Stranger Things without revealing plot points, this is a show that was perhaps waiting for a platform like Netflix before it could even be made. If you are on the lookout for your next binge, Stranger Things is definitely worthy. Save your nails, though. You have been warned. 

Also Read: Love and other ghosts in The Haunting of Bly Manor