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The following contains spoilers for Season 4 of Stranger Things.Being the cultural touchstone that it is, Stranger Things constantly has to find ways to reinvent itself and ensure that the story and style of the show don't become stagnant. It would be easy for the show to fall into the same patterns because they are familiar and easy, and while this is something that the show does often do, it's also good about making each season feel distinct from the others. Season 4 was certainly no exception to this, as even comparing the characters and the overall tone to that of the first season reveals that Season 4 feels entirely different.
One of the reasons why this is the case is that Season 4 drew a lot of influence from classic horror movies and tropes. Stranger Things has always been built on the idea of nostalgia and constructing its story around those cultural objects of the 1980s, but Season 4 took that and shifted the focus to horror stories specifically. Not only are the nods to those classic scary movies fun for horror fans, but the shift to a horror tone also helped make this season feel darker and more adult in a lot of ways.
Stranger Things has always had a dark tone, which would be pretty hard to avoid in a story about monsters and evil forces that drag people into a hell-like realm or possess their bodies. However, there was something about the first few seasons that managed to keep a bit of lightness. Whether it was the tone itself or simply the fact that the core cast were all still young kids, certain aspects lent a certain hint of innocence towards the events of the story.
In Season 4, however, the characters are much older, and at this point have been through their fair share of harrowing adventures. While the show still has plenty of light moments (and the script seems to be particularly quippy this season), the overall tone has matured a lot, just as the characters themselves have grown up through the story. The audience, many of whom might have been young teenagers themselves when the show started, has also gotten older, and so it makes sense to have the story mature right along with them.
The horror influences themselves vary from straight-up references to borrowing styles or ideas. Stranger Things has always been influenced by the nostalgia of the 80s and has drawn on the pop culture of that time period in order to build the world of Hawkins, but this season seemed to want to draw influence from the classic slashers and thrillers of the time. Now is the perfect time to do so, as many classic horror franchises have been getting rebooted lately. While the show has always had its moments of gore and horror, it was ramped up a lot for Season 4.
This season was heavy on the body horror, specifically with the Vecna possessions. The way the characters' limbs were snapped all directions when Vecna took control of their minds was imagery straight out of a horror film, and was especially shocking considering the show had never gone quite that far before. There is also the scene where Henry kills all the other kids at the lab, and the visual of that carnage is incredibly disturbing, considering that all the victims were young children.
The references to actual horror movies are actually quite fun to count when they pop up. There are little things, like Eddie donning a Michael Myers mask as a disguise when the group runs through the trailer park, but there are also references that go a little deeper. The scene where Nancy and Robin visit Victor Creel in jail feels straight out of Silence of the Lambs, from the way the jail cells are laid out to the actual structure of the interrogation itself. The horror movie references aren't just confined to movies that came out in the 80s, since Silence of the Lambs is a bit later, but the tone still hearkens back to that "classic" era of horror.
In that same interrogation scene, the actor playing Victor Creel is Robert Englund, who is perhaps best known for playing Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Stranger Things likes to bring on stars who were famous in the 80s to add that element of nostalgia, like Winona Ryder and Sean Astin, and Englund fulfilled that quota for this season. Involving someone who was such a massive part of the horror genre with this season really indicates how much the Duffer brothers wanted to lean into that specific tone.
The Vecna house (aka Henry's childhood home) is also a classic example of a haunted house, and has a creepy aura that adds to the tone and ambiance perfectly. It's also reminiscent of Stephen King's It, as the embodiment of evil in that story also has its "headquarters" in a spooky abandoned house. It and Stranger Things also feel tied to each other because they both involve groups of children facing off against an evil force that preys on their fear and often seems to target them specifically.
Again, Stranger Things has always been at least slightly influenced by the pillars of horror and sci-fi that have come before it, but this season was especially heavy with those allusions. Leaning into a more horror-inspired tone will be good for the show, as it will give it a bit of heaviness and a sense of direction going into the final season. The stakes are higher and the characters are older, so it seems like the right time to start making things just a little scarier for the audience. As usual, if Stranger Things can find a way to use nostalgia as a way to enhance the story, it's going to do it, and it's going to do it well.