Stranger Things 4 Trailer: What Fresh Horrors Await The Kids From Hawkins?

Insert the "It's Been 84 Years" gif from "Titanic" here, because after a long wait (three years, actually), "Stranger Things" is coming back, y'all! The sensational series from the Duffer Brothers is heading toward its penultimate season, with "Stranger Things" season 4 heading our way sooner rather than later. In an official statement, the Duffer Brothers declared that season 4 has been their most challenging yet, citing "nine scripts, over eight-hundred pages, almost two years of filming, thousands of visual effects shots, and a runtime nearly twice the length of any previous season." The fourth season takes place six months following the end of season 3, an adventurous choice considering Finn Wolfhard who plays Mike Wheeler has sprung up to just shy of six feet tall since the previous season. Fingers crossed there's a clever growth spurt line to explain the kids' dramatically changing appearances, or at least something to explain poor Noah Schnapp's increasingly ridiculous haircuts as Will Byers. 

The last we saw the heroes of Hawkins, they had survived the Battle of Starcourt Mall with Jim Hopper having sacrificed his life to keep the Mind Flayer and the rest of the Upside Down burghers in check. At least, that's what Eleven and co. have been led to believe, as Hopper was really taken hostage by Soviet agents. He's got a newly shaved head and probably a revenge plot. Eleven moved in with the Byers family and left for California, looking to reunite with the crew over spring break. But of course, Hawkins isn't your ordinary town, so in addition to the otherworldly monsters and government conspiracies, they've now got the fallout of a 1950s murder mystery at the local Creel House to deal with.

Season 4 brings back all of our faves, like Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Cara Buono (Karen Wheeler), and Brett Gelman (Murray Bauman). This season also boasts a slew of killer newcomers, including Amybeth McNulty ("Anne with an E"), Jamie Campbell Bower ("The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones"), Eduardo Franco ("Booksmart"), Regina Ting Chen ("The Falcon and the Winter Soldier"), Myles Truitt ("Queen Sugar"), Grace Van Dien ("The Rookie"), Joseph Quinn ("Catherine the Great"), Sherman Augustus ("Westworld"), Mason Dye ("Bosch"), Tom Wlaschiha ("Game of Thrones"), Nikola Djuricko ("In The Land of Blood and Honey"), and Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund.

The Duffer Brothers have spoken about how each season of "Stranger Things" is a step forward on the path to maturity, with the adventurous "Ghostbusters" energy of the early season growing to a more horror-centric fourth season.

When we pitched it to Netflix all those years ago, we pitched it as the kids are..."The Goonies" in E.T. That's their storyline. And the adults are in "Jaws' and "Close Encounters" and then the teens are in "Nightmare on Elm Street" or "Halloween." But, this year, we don't have the kids. We can't do "The Goonies" anymore. And so, suddenly, we're leaning much harder into that horror movie territory that we love. It was fun to make that change.

Volume 1 of "Stranger Things" season 4 makes its debut on Netflix on May 27, 2022, with Volume 2 following on July 1, 2022.