Stranger Things: Is The Show More Horror or Sci-Fi?
The Duffer Brothers’ Netflix mega-hit Stranger Things is most definitely a coming-of-age dramedy and an eighties nostalgia trip, but is the show more horror or sci-fi? One of the most recognizable titles in the streaming service’s impressive line-up, Netflix’s Stranger Things is the story of some small-town adolescents struggling with growing up in the eighties, friendships, and first loves — while also dealing with Demogorgons, inter-dimensional travel, telekinesis, and “Mind-Flaying” monstrosities. Given the show’s subject matter, where does it fall in terms of genre: is it more of a science fiction story or a horror thriller?
Sci-fi and horror are closely-related genres that often overlap. Stranger Things is difficult to label — not just because it resists conventional genre trappings, but also because it clearly draws inspiration from a wide variety of classic ’70s and ’80s movies. Some unfinished subplots, like the unknown fate of Eleven’s secret sister Kali, leave the series feeling more like a sci-fi mystery concerned with government conspiracies and secret experiments; on the other hand, the show undeniably contains elements of horror — for example, the numerous Jaws references clearly align the show with Steven Spielberg’s classic thriller. Furthermore, each of the show’s three seasons has featured a primary plotline which focused on pitting the heroes against a monster straight out of David Cronenberg’s nightmares. So what is Stranger Things: a sci-fi show with a lot of horror, or a horror show with a lot of sci-fi?
Stranger Things has plenty of potential in both genres but consistently chooses to focus on horror tropes over sci-fi elements throughout its three seasons. Back when it was known as Montauk, the original series plan for Stranger Things cribbed the entire structure of Stephen King’s doorstopper IT before that novel got a blockbuster adaptation. The show has worn the influence of horror’s crown prince on its sleeve ever since. Stranger Things borrows liberally from King’s back catalog, as well as referencing classics like A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Thing, The Evil Dead, Alien, and The Blob. The show’s three seasons may feature an overarching storyline with a hard-to-follow internal logic — including secret government mind control experiments, Soviet attempts at inter-dimensional travel, and a lot of telekinetic powers for the diminutive heroine El — but despite these forays into sci-fi territory, the plots of each season focus on hunting down and defeating the monstrous Demogorgon, solving the possession of Will Byers, and killing a massive body-snatching blob monster.
The third season’s storyline, in particular, was influenced by the classic eighties Larry Cohen horror The Stuff, although the show regrettably elides the sharp anti-consumerist satire of Cohen’s film. The third season’s main plot also references The Blob and the many remakes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, most often borrowing from Abel Ferrara’s 1993 re-do Body Snatchers. The second season’s focus on the possession of Will Byers is modeled after the seventies trend of exorcism horrors, while the first season’s pursuit of a shadowy, unseen killer is reminiscent of eighties slasher movies with the Demogorgon standing in for Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger.Not only that, but the antagonist of the second and third seasons is modeled on The Shining‘s Jack Torrance, and his gruesome ordeal as the Mind Flayer’s human host borrows elements from everything from The Fly to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
There’s no denying that Stranger Things‘ subplots and overarching storyline lean toward sci-fi tropes, but the show also traffics in coming-of-age comedy and romance and that doesn’t change its primary genre categorization. When it comes to the main plot of each season, Stranger Things is a horror show through and through, whether it’s an inter-dimensional slasher, a possession story with a twist, or a gruesome body horror ordeal.
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