Stranger Things: There's Still Something in the Woods
Updated
Stranger Things understands how frightening a familiar place can become. A quiet road, a house with the lights on, the woods just beyond the neighbourhood: none of these needs much alteration before it stops feeling safe. The opening disappearance in Hawkins is a very good invitation to keep watching. Something has happened to a boy who should have made it home, and the people who care about him cannot leave the question alone.
The 1980s setting helps, but the first season would not work on references alone. The friendships have enough life to make the search matter. The adults have their own worries and imperfect ways of dealing with them. Finding a strange girl in the middle of this gives the mystery a person to connect with, rather than another piece of evidence to pin on a wall.
Across the first four seasons, that mixture of affection and unease makes Stranger Things very enjoyable genre television. It grows considerably bigger than its opening mystery. I don't think the extra size always improves it, but there is plenty here to justify returning to Hawkins.
Before the monsters, the missing boy
The first season has a particularly strong grip because the different searches begin with understandable concerns. The children want their friend back. Joyce wants her son. Hopper has a disappearance to investigate. Nobody needs to grasp the whole situation for their part of it to feel urgent.
That is an advantage over a story which begins by asking the audience to memorise its mythology. Hawkins becomes interesting through the people trying to make sense of it. The laboratory is disturbing because it intrudes on an ordinary town, not because somebody has delivered a detailed explanation of its history.
The separation between the groups is useful too. They have different information and different ideas about what is plausible. Watching those approaches develop gives the mystery movement without requiring a fresh revelation every few minutes.
I particularly like that the children use the language they already have to describe things they cannot understand. Their games give them a way to think, not a sudden supply of adult expertise.
A gang worth spending time with
The young cast is fundamental to the appeal. Mike, Dustin and Lucas do not agree about everything, and the disagreements make the friendship more convincing. Their loyalty isn't expressed only in grand declarations. It is there in the arguments about what to do next and who is being unreasonable.
Eleven changes the balance. Millie Bobby Brown has to communicate a great deal without being given the same conversational freedom as the others. Small responses carry weight, especially when she is learning whether these people can be trusted.
The series is often at its best when an extraordinary situation leaves room for an ordinary embarrassment. Wanting to fit in, feeling left out or misunderstanding a friend doesn't become irrelevant because something dangerous is nearby.
As the cast expands, not every grouping has the same energy. There are combinations I would happily spend longer with and others that feel more dependent on the immediate plot. The central affection remains strong enough to carry those uneven patches.
Joyce and Hopper keep Hawkins grounded
Winona Ryder gives Joyce an intensity that could become tiring in a less convincing performance. Here, it has a clear source. Her son is missing, and she is being asked to accept explanations that do not satisfy her. The urgency is not something she can politely set aside.
The performance also makes room for how that urgency looks to other people. Joyce doesn't have the luxury of appearing composed before anyone will take her seriously. Ryder keeps the person visible inside the panic.
David Harbour brings a different weight as Jim Hopper. His bluntness and weariness give the investigation some resistance. He belongs to a town with ordinary routines, and he cannot immediately behave as though he knows he is in a supernatural story.
Having both perspectives matters. The adults aren't merely obstacles the children must evade, nor are they there only to explain the danger. Their involvement gives Hawkins a life beyond the group on bicycles.
The eighties are doing some useful work
The period setting supplies more than a soundtrack and a selection of recognisable objects. Information travels differently. People have to find one another, make arrangements and sometimes act without being able to check what somebody else knows. A missed conversation can remain missed.
That helps the adventure. The bicycles and walkie-talkies belong to the way the characters move through their world. They are not simply props held up for viewers who remember owning something similar.
The music is a major part of the pleasure. Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein's electronic score can make a quiet stretch feel unsettled before anything happens. The opening titles establish the mood with remarkable economy; they don't need to show you the whole attraction.
Familiar songs have their place too, though I prefer when a track belongs to a character or a moment rather than just announcing the decade. The series is capable of making an old song feel newly attached to its world without explaining the association to death.
Bigger isn't always more frightening
The early restraint is hard to reproduce once the audience knows more. A threat glimpsed at the edge of a small story has advantages that a much larger confrontation cannot simply buy back with scale.
Later seasons offer more locations, more characters and longer stretches of spectacle. Some of that expansion is entertaining. It lets the ensemble work in different combinations and gives the horror room to change its approach. Season four, in particular, pushes further into an overtly frightening register.
The cost is that the story can become less compact. I don't always need another detour when the central situation already has enough tension. The longer episodes also ask more patience than the first season's relatively direct momentum.
Even so, the show usually has somebody worth following when the larger machinery becomes busy. A performance, an awkward conversation or a good pairing can recover my attention. The affection for the characters is doing genuine work, not merely filling the time between effects sequences.
Horror with people to come home to
Stranger Things isn't the most relentless horror series, and I don't think it needs to be. The warmth is part of what gives the danger a purpose. A town consisting only of ominous buildings and frightened extras would be much less involving.
The balance does require care. Too much joking can make a threat feel temporary; too much spectacle can make an individual fear seem small. When the show gets it right, the lighter scenes give you a reason to want these people out of trouble.
It also benefits from allowing friendship to be awkward. Growing up doesn't leave the group in a permanently harmonious arrangement. Different interests and changing priorities can hurt without anybody becoming a villain.
That is why the series works for me beyond the appeal of its influences. I can recognise the films and stories it draws from, but recognition isn't the main reason to continue. I want to spend time with the people it has assembled, even when I wish the latest predicament were a little less elaborate.
Start in Hawkins, without a map
The first season is the best place to find out whether this is for you. Go in for a missing-person mystery and let the stranger elements arrive at their own pace. There is no need to research the mythology beforehand; doing so would take away some of the pleasure.
My strongest recommendation is to viewers who enjoy supernatural adventure with a real fondness for its characters. The first four seasons offer plenty of that, alongside some uneven pacing as the ambition grows. I would choose its quieter, more focused stretches over sheer size, but I have enjoyed the journey.
The Haunting of Hill House is a good next choice for a more adult family story built around fear and grief. Dark takes a missing-child mystery somewhere more intricate, while Severance offers another ordinary-looking place with something deeply wrong beneath it.
UK viewing: Netflix currently lists all five seasons, checked 13 September 2026. The assessment above covers seasons one to four.
Keep Reading
More Reviews You Might Like
Top 10 Gangster Shows Told From Inside the Family
Ten gangster dramas I recommend for their characters, family loyalties and criminal worlds, from The Sopranos and Gomorrah to Kin and MobLand.
Read review
Severance review: the horror of never leaving work
My spoiler-free Severance review after finishing season two: why its divided lives, performances and unsettling office made me rate it more highly.
Read review
Absentia review: a solid thriller carried by Stana Katic
A spoiler-free Absentia review after all three seasons: Stana Katic carries a solid thriller with a convincing central performance and modest ambitions.
Read review
The Big Bang Theory review: brilliant company, terrible flatmates
A highly recommended sitcom, with Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco and an excellent ensemble finding comedy in friendship, science and the smallest disagreements.
Read review