Guy Adams - Notes from the Upside Down: An Unofficial Guide to Stranger Things

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Copyright 2017 by Guy Adams

Previously published in 2017 by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

Originally published in Great Britain by Ebury.

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ISBN 978-1-5011-7803-0

ISBN 978-1-5011-7804-7 (ebook)

A h... remember the eighties? Things were simpler back then: we had MTV, a tanned showboating Republican in the White House, and all we had to worry about were rumblings from Russia and violence in the Middle East. Happy days. I doubt well see their like again.

The world of television was certainly simpler. We had limited choices, and those we did have were more short-lived. Yes, you might be lucky enough to record your favorite show, but chances are, once youd seen it, it was gone. But that was okay, because we had books, novelizations so we could relive the story (only with better special effects), and maybe even books about the show so we could find out what exactly it was that a producer did, and what else wed seen that bloke on the left inno, that one, yes, the one holding the plastic ray gun while lumps of fiberglass from the planet Alpharis descend on him.

Of course, now we have streaming, we have downloads, we have TV that never goes away. As for books, who needs them? Thats what the Internets for.

Oh. Hello. Welcome to Notes from the Upside Down . Im a book. Sorry.

Maybe Im just another eighties reference. A nostalgic wink.

So whats the point of me?

Well, on the one hand, I can but hope that some of the people picking me up arent so immersed in the show that I cant tell them a few things they didnt know. That would be nice. I have lots of facts; enjoy them, sprinkle them into dinner conversation until all your guests leave (at which point fire up Netflix and watch somethingwho needs friends?).

For the rest of you, the ones who know everything , I hope youll find plenty of interest here too. I particularly hope you find thingsmovies, TV shows, bookslinked to the show that you didnt know so much about and maybe havent seen or read. I would like that very much. If this book makes just one person watch Gary Shermans 1981 movie Dead & Buried , I shall consider my time well spent.

Most of all, I hope this book is simply this: a fun conversationalbeit a rather one-sided one, sorry, feel free to shout backamong fans of the show. When you love something, its nice to go on about it a bit, isnt it? This is me. Going on.

Heres how it works: as well as a couple of general sections looking at the creation of the show and the cast involved, well look at each episode andas well as boring you with my opinion

Theres even a quiz after every chapter. I KNOW.

So, to hell with the Internet; just for a minute, lets pretend its the eighties again. Lets remember when there was nothing better than a dense, excitable sourcebook detailing worlds of the imagination.

Roll ten or more to turn the page and lets have fun.

Stranger Things has become an instant reference. You cant move for people wafting frozen egg-based foodstuffs around and bopping to the ominous synth pulsing of John Carpenter, certainly not in my house. So it must have been an easy show to get greenlit.

This is TV. Nothing is ever easy in TV.

Though, in fairness, despite the odd speed bump, Stranger Things had an easier ride than some. Before we go deeper into minutiae and wallow in the murky, mad old business of dissecting the show as if it were a rubber-and-kapok-stuffed faux Will Byers, lets treat ourselves to a BMX bike ride through the UFO-lit forest of its creation.

Ross and Matt Duffer are twins, fraternal or identical they dont know and theyre in no rush to find out. They were born in 1984 and grew up in the suburbs of Durham, North Carolina. As any fantasist knows, where you grow up is an easy place to escape from; all you need is a good book or movie. A love of the likes of Spielberg, Stephen King, and John Carpenter struck early on, as they wrote in an essay for Entertainment Weekly :

We were pretty ordinary kids growing up in the suburbs of North Carolina, and when we watched these films and read these books, it made us feel like our rather normal lives had the potential for adventure. Maybe tomorrow we would find a treasure map in the attic, or maybe one of us would vanish into the television screen, or maybe there was a clown in that sewer grate down the street.

Speaking to Vulture , Ross would add: Why we loved this stuff so much is because these movies and books were about very ordinary people we could relate to, that we understood... That was always our favorite type of story, and thats the stuff we fell in love with. The peak of those type of ordinary-meets-extraordinary stories was in the eighties.

So yes, the Duffer Brothers were dreamers. They were Whats more, Im betting they were everyone thats reading this book.

Take the suburbs, add a sizable amount of escapist fantasy, and its only a matter of time before kids start making things up themselves. The Duffer Brothers began making movies by fourth grade.

In an interview with North Carolinas The News & Observer , they claimed that their first directorial obsession was with the work of Tim Burton. They thought his movies, especially when youre young, were incredibly visual and distinct. They were able to recognize the job of director and identify with Tims movies.

Their first homemade movie was based on Magic: The Gathering, and was effectively just the two of them beating each other with plastic swords.

For all they consider their first attempts unwatchable, a habit was formed, and every summer they would make a new movie. Its no great surprise that they ended up studying film in California at Chapman University. While studying, they continued making short movies, including We All Fall Down , about the bubonic plague in 1666, which won Best Short at the Deep Ellum Film Festival in 2005.

For their senior thesis they adapted the short story Eater by Peter Crowther, and which secured them representation by the Paradigm Talent Agency. Things seemed to be on the up, and they sold a script for their first full-length feature, Hidden , to Warner Bros. with both of them attached as directors.

Hidden tells the story of a family in a fallout shelter, hiding from the aftereffects of a viral outbreak. Alexander Skarsgrd and Andrea Riseborough were cast, and it seemed the Duffer Brotherss big break was on the cards. Sadly, the studio delayed the release of the movie for three years (even then it crept out only on VOD). While they were waiting, they pitched ideas for the studios planned adaptation of the Stephen King novel It but were turned down.