I'm not very good at keeping up with television; the list of genre shows that I haven't watched (yet) is long and would probably be shocking to a lot of horror fans. The Stranger Things phenomenon is so great, however, that even I am wrapped up in this thing. That's a show I was anxious to see as soon as I heard that it was going to be a loving homage to '80s classics, and I was totally blown away by the trailer.
Stranger Things made its debut on Netflix on July 15th and hype was already through the roof when I got around to watching it with friends just over a week later, but the fact that I watched it that soon says a lot for its allure.
Starring Winona Ryder, Charlie Heaton, David Harbour, Matthew Modine, Millie Brown, Natalia Dyer, and Carla Buono, Stranger Things has the following synopsis:
Set in Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980s, Stranger Things chronicles the search for a young boy who vanishes into thin air under highly suspicious circumstances. His mother opens an investigation into the boy's disappearance with local authorities that unravels a series of mysteries involving top-secret government experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one very strange little girl.
I absolutely loved the show, even more than I expected to, and spent its eight episodes basking in the glory of its retro setting and tone and the visual/story references it was packed with.
Fittingly, the new line of T-shirts that Fright Rags has created as a Stranger Things tie-in also contain references to '80s classics. There are three shirts available, one of which presents the Stranger Things title in the style of the logo for THE GOONIES, and another which is a nod to the "Stephen King Rules" shirt worn by a character in THE MONSTER SQUAD.
If you want to be a little more subtle while wearing your Stranger Things fandom out in public, the third shirt is simply for the A.V. Club at the middle school the child characters attend.
These three shirts are currently up for pre-order on the Fright Rags site and will only be available for a very limited time – your chance to buy them will end Saturday night at 11:59pm EST. Each goes for the price of $19.83, since Stranger Things is set in 1983.