Stranger Days

Stranger things, the ’80s-set show that came from nowhere to conquer the world, is back for a hotly anticipated second season. Richard Edwards gets the intel from the Upside Down

YOU’RE GONNA FUCKING LOVE SEASON TWO!”

Stranger Things’s executive producer Shawn levy assures SFX, speaking on the phone from his la office. “You can quote me on that if you want. Trust me, I'm sitting here watching episodes, and I'm like, ‘oh shit, I think we did it!’”

If he’s right – and let’s admit it, he may be a little biased – millions of Stranger Things fans can breathe a collective sigh of relief. Last July, the ’80s-set Netflix series came from nowhere to become one of the most popular shows of the year, defying the seemingly set-in-stone law that to be successful, a movie or tv show must be based on an existing franchise or brand. As the show’s affectionate riffs on amblin movies, Dungeons & Dragons and Stephen king novels tapped into a collective vein of nostalgia, the question wasn’t so much whether you’d watched it, as whether you’d binged it in one, two or three nights. Within days of its launch, water cooler chat was dominated by talk of the upside Down, Demogorgons, and a little girl with cropped hair, psychic abilities and a susceptibility to nosebleeds. Its child stars became regulars on red carpets. Eggos, frozen waffles from America, suddenly became famous in the UK – where, as far as we’re aware, they’ve never even been available.

“I knew it was good, but we had no idea whether people would tune in,” recalls Levy. “I remember as early as the day after launch, the volume of social media I started seeing was astonishing. Within a week it felt like a wave, and within a month it felt like a tsunami. It feels like something that would only happen in the upside Down [the show’s scary parallel world], but it’s real life, and it’s thrilling!”