Sunday 29 May 2022

Stranger Things: Season 4, Chapter 1- The Hellfire Club

 “I like boobies. You like boobies.”

It’s back. And it’s… seventy-seven minutes long. With the following six episodes to be released thus far being a similar length. Gulp. Oh, and those episodes don’t even comprise the whole season.

This is the biggest season of Stranger Things this far. Judging by this highly eventful first episode, although there’s a long way to go, early signs are that it’s a contender for the best.

There are, by now, so many characters to keep track of. Now in California we have Eleven, being bullied, and Will, while Joyce discovers a clue in a creepy Russian doll (brrr!) that Hopper may still be alive. Simultaneously, in Hawkins, Lucas is turning away from geekdom towards basketball and the popular kids, but his awesome sister Erica is more than a suitable replacement.

There’s more. Steve and Robin make great friends, talking about girls they like. There’s a new, awesome, weed dealing geek metalhead character, Eddie. And there’s the poor girl who is so horribly and effectively killed by Vecna who, as is traditional, is a D&D baddie- in this case, I believe, a lich from the Greyhawk campaign. Incidentally, I loved seeing the 1st Edition AD&D paraphernalia.

So far there’s a lot of very well done character stuff, and the villain seems to be terrifying in a way that truly uses the grammar of cinematic horror. It’s very well directed indeed by the Duffer Brothers. And I’m already hooked.

Loving the title too; I suspect it's a reference not so much to Joseph Dashwood as to Chris Claremont.

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