17 Key Cinematic Influences On Stranger Things

7) John Carpenter

John Carpenter’s movies don’t have as strong a bearing on Stranger Things as those of Spielberg and King, but his films are unquestionably in the show’s make up. There’s a protracted alleyway fight a la They Live, radio acts as a communication tool for the other side as in The Fog, while the faceless monster from the Upside Down appears influenced by those from The Thing (at one point we even see two characters watching and discussing a scene from the movie).

Perhaps the director’s greatest ‘contribution’ to the series, however, is the Carpenter-aping score by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein. Heavy on the synth, the Stranger Things soundtrack is apparently influenced not by any one Carpenter score in particular; it’s more like a summation of all the movie scores from his 70s/80s collection, and it plays throughout Stranger Things. It means Carpenter DNA can be detected in season one from beginning to end.