There have been plenty of comparisons made between the latest season of Stranger Things and A Nightmare on Elm Street, from its almost dreamlike blurring of reality to its Freddy Krueger-style villain, Vecna. Now one fan has brought the two worlds together with a recreation of the iconic poster for Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, with Vecna and Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven replacing Krueger and Nancy.
While the early series of Stranger Things pulled a lot of inspiration from family-orientated 80s movies such as The Goonies and Ghostbusters, there was always going to be some kind of dark escalation as its young cast grew older. Following the third season’s icky Mindflayer-building, which saw residents of Hawkins being turned to mush and congealed together to create a real-world version of the creature from the Upside-Down, season 4 has turned up the horror another notch and has been therefore drawing on the likes of A Nightmare on Elm Street and other 80s horror movies for its darker storylines.
Now thanks to the work by artist diamonddead on Instagram, we can see the inspiration meet the inspired in a brilliant crossover that embodies the two franchises in one epic poster. Check it out below.
Stranger Things Season 4 is Growing Up With Its Cast
Like many long-running franchises with children as the central characters, eventually those children have to grow up, and just like a number of other shows and movies that have seen storylines become progressively darker over time, Stranger Things has seen a massive escalation in horror in its new season. Star Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike in the series, previously compared the change to that seen in the Harry Potter franchise. She said:
“I think inherently it becomes darker every season. It also gets funnier, it gets scarier, it gets more dramatic. That comes with all of us growing up and getting older. We’re not all going to be in mop-top wigs, 40 years old, and screaming about Demogorgons. I think this is a very good example of the Duffers treating our characters like their ages. And I like to compare it to Harry Potter – those movies became darker [the longer they went] and that’s kind of where we’re at now in the progression, in my opinion.”
Most of the young cast of the show were around the age of 10 when they began working on Stranger Things and now are mostly around 18/19 years old, which has led to the Duffer Brothers making Stranger Things more mature to match the actors' ability to cope with more disturbing content. While the show has continued to grow in both scale and scope, it is not surprising that the main series is now heading towards a conclusion, as the Duffers clearly have no intention of dragging out the story until it degrades the phenomenal work they have done so far.
Stranger Things Season 4 Part 1 is available on Netflix now, and Part 2 drops on July 1.