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17 Key Cinematic Influences On Stranger Things

Credit where credit's due for Matt and Ross Duffer: together, they've created one of the most purely entertaining shows of the year so far, despite having no major credits to their name before now (save for some shorts and a few episodes of Wayward Pines). Now, with Stranger Things, the brothers are set to become Hollywood big shots - already, their supernatural Netflix original is proving a runaway success with both critics and audiences.

8) Poltergeist

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A lot of 80s pop culture and many hit 80s movies are explicitly referenced in Stranger Things. Poltergeist – directed by Tobe Hooper and written and produced by Steven Spielberg (though some insist Spielberg, rather than Hooper, actually directed the thing as well) – is one of them. In fact, in the very first episode, Joyce gives Will tickets to see the horror classic.

The show then becomes a kind of poltergeist story itself for a few episodes, as the Byers residence turns into a ‘haunted house’ affected by the Upside Down and its monster. As in Poltergeist, the ‘house’ appears to abduct one of the child residents, and begins to bend and ‘behave’ unnaturally, with electronic appliances switching on and off at random (though this is more specifically related to the definitely-Spielberg-directed Close Encounters).

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