Stranger Things 2 spoilers: Be prepared for more fear (but also more heart)

With Stranger Things 2 streaming on Netflix this Halloween (there is still a bit of a wait for new episodes), you better be prepared to have the pants scared off of you! This is a show that does like to scare it’s audience, very much in the way that some monster-movie products of old like to do, but it seems that they are going to be amping up the creep factor next season. We were already creeped out by the weird slug thing that came our of Will’s mouth at the end of last season, so if it’s anything along those lines, we are pretty sure it’s going to be giving us good nightmare fodder for weeks.

While scaring it’s audience is a main factor to this show, there are also some other ambitions that this series focuses on as well, including a desire to make you feel things. Maybe it’s heartbreak, maybe it’s laughter, or maybe it’s nostalgia for a different time (this show is clearly in a beautiful 80’s time warp reminiscent of the Goonies). Being scared is great fun, but for us the relationship the kids had with Eleven was the aspect that kept bringing us back for more.

So how is the show trying to raise the stakes now? Well, some of that has to do with success. Following season 1, the Duffer brothers and Shawn Levy have more of a sense of what people love, and what they’d love to see more of. They can now hone in on some of that, and in the wake of the show’s success, they can also afford to provide more of that. This is what Levy had to say on that subject to Entertainment Weekly recently:

“I was just in the edit room with the brothers yesterday, and we’re like, ‘This is definitely darker. I hope everyone’s down with this,’ because the threats to Hawkins and to our characters are bigger, darker, often times scarier … So people who found season 1 too scary for them, probably you’re going to be more scared by season 2. But again, the best thing I can tell you is that through it all, it’s got the best heart. But it is, cinematically and budgetary, it’s definitely more ambitious.”

As for how this ambition will present itself on screen, that’s hard to say right now given the series’ super-secretive nature. As we’ve said in the past, knowing too much about this series in advance probably detracts from the enjoyment of it and they are good at keeping things under wraps.

The one thing that we would caution against if we were a producer on this show is going too big and bold leading to the show losing some of its charm. There was something homespun about the first season that added to the appeal along with the focus on the genuine friendships that were being built.

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