SUCH IS THE ALMOST unlimited power
of Netflix, they’ve transported Empire back
to July, 1985. We’re strolling round the
Starcourt, a newly built mall in middle
America. Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ is
pumping out of the speakers, Back To The
Future, Cocoon and Fletch are playing at the
multiplex cinema, boomboxes line the
shelves of the Radio Shack store, there’s
a Jazzercise outlet above the food court, and
a bunch of little kids are exploiting the free
sample offer at the Scoops Ahoy ice-cream
parlour, much to the annoyance of the older
teens who work there. School’s most
definitely out for summer. In the middle of
this retina-scorching whirl of neon and
strip-lighting is a teenage girl with a drop of
blood at her nostril.
This is, of course, the fictional world of
Hawkins, Indiana, the small town at the
centre of Stranger Things, Netflix’s biggest
pop- culture phenomenon so far, created by
the Duffer brothers, Matt and Ross. And
that world is about to change radically.
After two series mostly set in grey school
classrooms and corridors, the basements of
suburban homes, and a shady research
facility deep in the woods, Season 3
broadens its canvas, with much of the early
action taking place in this vast retail palace,
which is actually a real, disused mall on the
outskirts of Atlanta, transformed by genius
production designers into a meticulously
accurate recreation of gaudy ’80s retail
iconography. The place is entirely
emblematic of the show’s bright new glow.
“Season 3 is the most different season
for sure because it’s set in the summer,
which we’ve never done before,” explains
Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler,
one of the gaggle of teen nerd heroes
around whom the show revolves. “It’s
always [been] set at school or with school
involved, but now it kind of starts off with
a bang. We’re all just enjoying ourselves at
the height of our teenage lives and then
something just happens...”
darken the atmosphere, we won’t spoil.
Let’s just say that despite many upbeat
sequences in the first few episodes cutting
between throngs of teens scurrying around
the mall and Hawkins locals frolicking in
the community swimming pool, there are
still horrors lurking. The breezy summer
vibe won’t last too long.
Indeed ill portents are everywhere
as the early episodes progress. There’s a
mysterious Russian man wandering round
town, throwing back to a scene in Season
1 when Eleven remembered an encounter
with a Russian agent. Gaten Matarazzo’s
adorable science nerd Dustin is hearing
weird voices on his walkie talkie. And there
are rats. Lots of rats. Exploding rats.
As Wolfhard puts it, “The more fun
we’re having at the start of this season,
the bigger the drop...” It’s no accident that
George A. Romero’s classic Day Of The
Dead is also showing at the movie theatre,
as Season 3’s steady march towards July
4, 1985 kicks in, and that zombie movie’s
bleakly apocalyptic mood is perhaps
a harbinger of what’s to come. Speaking
to the young cast members on set,
they’re keen to point out how the famous
influences on the tone of the show have
shifted from the family-friendly ET, The
Goonies and Stand By Me, to the far
creepier Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
and The Shining. “It’s definitely darker,”
says Charlie Heaton, who plays cool-but-
he-doesn’t-know-it teen Jonathan Byers.
When asked if this season will be scarier,
Wolfhard, who’s 16 years old, says it’s
more a case of creators and showrunners
“becoming better at doing horror”. It’s
clear that Wolfhard, along with his fellow
young cast-mates Noah Schnapp (Will),
Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas) and Gaten
Matarazzo (Dustin), feel they know what
makes the show work as well as anyone,
having been at the centre of it for over three
years. So while the Duffers did originally
give all the actors a primer on the movies
that influenced the show (mostly ones
directed by Steven Spielberg or adapted
from Stephen King stories), there’s no
need for that now. “They make references
but they don’t give us any homework,”
says Schnapp. “Because we’ve been
doing this for three years. They gave us
those references at the beginning because
everyone was coming into the show and
they wanted us to know what their baby
was, their story. But now we all know each
other and know what the show is.”From top: Will
(right) takes
Dungeons And
Dragons slightly
more seriously
than Mike and
Lucas; Max (right)
shows Eleven life
is all about ice
cream (and boys)
this season.Jonathan’s younger brother whose
disappearance in the alternative dimension
of the Upside Down sparked off this whole
saga, he’s still disturbed by visions of the
gigantic tentacled shadow monster hovering
over the town, as seen in the last shot of
Season 2, and he’s got a worrying new
itch on the back of his neck. When asked
what kind of distressing new trauma his
character faces this year, Schnapp shoots
back, “A bad haircut”. It’s true, he does
endure a particularly unfortunate twist on
the pudding-bowl look. But there’s more.
“Collectively, bad things happen,” he
adds. “Will still has the presence of the
monster left, and you kind of see what
happens there. People have asked, ‘Does
Will get a break this season?’ and I’m like,
‘Yeah, sure, for the first two episodes. And
then no one really gets a break.’”
Caleb McLaughlin , who plays Lucas,
agrees. “It’s an over-arching threat that
covers everyone,” he says. “I mean,
obviously there are little storylines that
break up, and different characters have
storylines together, but everyone kind of
has the same understanding of the threat.”