Netflix’s Stranger Things from Duffer Brothers (Matt and Ross) lived up to its description of “a love letter to the supernatural classics of the ‘80s.” Fans and writers from around the Web have been quick to point out the many movie references hidden within, but Vimeo user Ulysse Thevenon put together a supercut featuring side-by-side shots from the series and shots from their inspirations.

Among the films he pointed out were The Goonies, Alien, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Firestarter, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Shining, Stand By Me, Carrie, and Poltergeist. (To be fair, not all of these films are from the ‘80s.) Publications like Vulture have cited more references, but the side-by-side scenes make for a visually compelling analysis.


Watch the supercut below:

In an introduction to Stranger Things published by EW, the Duffer brothers wrote:

We grew up particularly obsessed with the movies of Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter, as well as the novels of Stephen King. Although their stories have a wide range of tones, we think they share something essential in common: They all explore that magical point where the ordinary meets the extraordinary.

Describing how these works influenced them, they confirmed a couple of the comparisons spotted by fans: “Maybe tomorrow we would find a treasure map in the attic [Goonies], or maybe one of us would vanish into the television screen [Poltergeist], or maybe there was a clown in that sewer grate down the street [It].”

Stranger Things, starring Winona Ryder and a crop of unknown but pretty talented kid actors, is available now to stream on Netflix. Here’s the official plot synopsis:

A love letter to the supernatural classics of the 80's, Stranger Things is the story of a young boy who vanishes into thin air. As friends, family and local police search for answers, they are drawn into an extraordinary mystery involving top-secret government experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one very strange little girl.


stranger-things-image-wolfhand-brown
Image via Netflix
stranger-things-image-4
Image via Netflix

stranger-things-poster-netflix