While the Stranger Things season 3 post-credits scene had every fan begging for more, it was the first teaser for the fourth season that kept us on our toes, waiting for even the tiniest amount of information about what the upcoming episodes will entail. The release of the final trailer not only piqued fans’ interest but also gave them a sneak peek at what could be the series’ most all-encompassing and heart-racing batch of episodes, all in its trademark upside-down grandeur.
Stranger Things 4’s first volume was released worldwide on Netflix on May 27th, effectively ending the long wait. And when we see the final product, our imaginations are blown! Here are the top ten WTF moments from Season 4 of Stranger Things that we can’t wait to share with you!
B For Bloodbath
Nine minutes into the first episode and there’s blood everywhere. Chapter One: The Hellfire Club begins with a flashback taking the viewers to the fateful day of September 8th, 1979. Dr. Martin Brenner is busy carrying out his experiments with Number Ten at the Hawkins Lab when all of a sudden chaos breaks out.
Terrifying screams, the sound of gunshots along with doors getting banged can be heard outside and before Dr. Brenner is able to figure out what exactly is happening, a flinging door knocks him unconscious. Dr. Brenner wakes up to find the whole lab to be wrecked and the staff along with all the children lying dead everywhere in a pool of blood.
Unable to figure out what took place, he goes to the Rainbow Room and is shocked to find an enraged young Eleven, her hospital gown stained with blood. A closer look at Eleven and she is fuming; one can even see blood dripping from her eyes and nose and Brenner keeps repeating, “What have you done?”. Now, we all know what that means!
The Death Of Chrissy Cunningham
Well, would you believe us? We are still in the first episode and we are specifically talking about the climax of the first episode, which shows Hawkin High’s most popular girl and lead cheerleader, Chrissy Cunningham, meeting a grisly, gory ending. Initially, she is seen getting tormented by visions of her family, mainly her mother and there’s also this creepy ticking grandfather clock that she keeps hearing and seeing everywhere.
Chrissy decides to resort to drugs to make those visions go away and settles on buying some drugs from the eccentric Eddie Munson. With her asking Eddie if he has something stronger than weed, he brings her to her trailer to give her ‘Special K’. But alas, her visions keep getting stronger and she begins to hallucinate about her family at Eddie’s home. The unearthly look of her mother is nothing compared to the sewed-up bloody face of her father and if that’s not enough, there is a full course meal infested with flies and spiders.
Finally, she comes face to face with the sentient, menacing, guttural humanoid creature from her visions, one who decides to put an end to her sufferings. While the creature is seen to claw her head in her vision, the present scene shows Chrissy rising from the ground level and then upon the ceiling, which of course is followed by the cracking and snapping of her bones, her legs and arms bending back, tearing off her jaw, blood coming out of her eyes and lastly, a wet squelching sound that shows her eyes popping out of her sockets. The scene’s categorically not the squeamish; don’t tell us later that we didn’t warn you!
The Creepy People In Black
With Nancy and her co-worker at the school newspaper Fred Benson deciding to investigate Chrissy’s death in Chapter Two: Vecna’s Curse, the duo goes to the trailer park. It’s there that the viewers learn about Fred having killed a kid in a crash. During their investigation, Fred is seen hearing the same ticking grandfather clock and starts venturing into the woods. That’s where he sees the clock lying on the ground. He’s clearly in a state of trance and hears a muffled weeping from behind. When he looks back, he sees a group of creepy people wearing black standing and weeping.
There’s a girl in the group who looks at him and starts pointing her expanding fleshy finger at him calling him a murderer. Soon, everybody in the group starts looking at him with their rotten faces and starts chanting ‘murderer’ while looking at him. Fred is seen running from there and later meeting his fated death in a similar fashion as Chrissy Cunningham and no points for guessing in the hands of the same creature too.
Max Thinks She Is Hugging Her Mom
May we add that this scene here is straight out of a horror flick? We are talking about Chapter Four: Dear Billy, one where Max starts writing letters to everyone thinking that her time is almost up. Of course, she starts seeing frequent hallucinations and they tend to get worse with time. Well, speaking of this particular scene here, she writes a letter to her mom and then comes home to keep it. Upon seeing her mother putting clothes out to dry, she goes to her and tells her about the letter, one where she has penned down her feelings in case something happens to her.
This worries her mother and Max ends up seeking comfort in her mother’s arms. Suddenly, the whole scene changes; what looked like a bright sunny day becomes dark and her mother’s voice is seen to become distorted too. The fact that it’s not her mother who is hugging her anymore becomes pretty clear and the viewers get to see a close-up look of the ghoulish Vecna, precisely the name of the creature, just in case you are wondering!
Right from the ominous sound of the bell toiling, the bloodied clothes, the dreadful sight of the lich to his menacing words and his slithering desiccated hands around Max, the entire scene is bound to send shivers down your spine. We recommend seeing it for yourself to believe us!
The First Look Of Victor Creel
Witnessing Nightmare on Elm Street legend Robert Englund portrays the role of the disturbing Victor Creel is indisputably one of the high points of the whole season. And, it’s definitely his first look that’s bound to blow your mind. Even before one actually got to see the disturbing man who is currently imprisoned at the Pennhurst Mental Hospital on the accountability for the gruesome murder of his entire family, the mood was already set with a rather specific comparison to Michael Myers.
Well, for someone who killed his family and even had their eyes cut out, he for sure cannot be taken lightly. Anyway, coming back to the context of the story, Nancy and Robin pose themselves as psychologists with the sole purpose of getting entry inside Pennhurst and talking to Creel.
With the duo visiting Creel in his chamber, it’s the first look of Creel that effectively paved a path for the most horrifying background story that was to follow. Post losing his wife and children to Vecna, he was held responsible for their deaths for obvious reasons and locked at Pennhurst. Of course, he tried to join his family and he attempted to do so by cutting his eyes with a blade and causing permanent damage to his vision. So when Creel shows his face to Robin and Nancy, his face is a gasping sight!
Max Escapes Vecna
Okay, we will be pretty honest here! Going by the flow of the episodes, there was a time when we were actually made to think that we will be losing Max and there is nothing that can be done about it. While Max is shown to read out loud Billy’s letter at his gravesite, Vecna plays his mind tricks on her and brings her to the Upside Down where she gets confronted by Billy.
That’s supposed to be a good thing, right? Not if it is Vecna’s doing and Billy is seen to transform back into the spell caster. This only leads Max to run away deeper and deeper into the frightful Upside Down, a place that’s made up of your worst nightmares. With the duo of Nancy and Robin remembering how it was music that had bought Victor Creel out of his trance, they ask Dustin to play Max’s favorite song, Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’.
The song opens up a portal and Max is able to see the real world. It’s kind of euphoric to see her remembering all her favorite memories with her friend, being bold enough to say to Vecna that he is not really there, and then race her way through the red fog with all her strength towards the opening despite endless things crashing from the sky and blocking her way. It’s safe to say that she successfully makes it back to the real world with her friends.
The Fate Of Steve Harrington
Chapter Six: The Dive does end the episode on a cliffhanger with the audience being driven literally to the edge of their seats. The Hawkin’s group tries figuring out where the other gate to the Upside Down is and they find themselves at Lover’s Lake. With Dustin’s compass pointing them deeper into the lake, Nancy, Robin, Steve, and Eddie take a boat into the middle of the lake. Steve dives down to find fish bones and a strange red light below.
As he swims towards the light, he is able to locate the opening. However, with him touching the portal, a tentacle comes out. While Steve makes it back up and confirms with the group about the other gate, he suddenly gets pulled down deeper underneath by the tentacle and into the Upside Down. Nancy jumps into the water to help out Steve followed by Robin and Eddie.
As for Steve, he is now inside the Upside Down and is seen to get dragged by the tentacle for quite a distance. As he is able to free himself from the tentacle, a swarm of vicious bat-like creatures starts flying toward him. Steve is able to hit a few of them with an oar but the creatures in a group prove to be more powerful than him. With one of the creatures wrapping its tail around Steve’s neck, he starts choking.
Two more creatures pounce on a screaming Steve and begin to violently bite him. Remember the time when we said that the sixth episode ended on a cliffhanger? This is where it ends and now, you know we weren’t kidding. Chapter seven begins right where the previous episode ended and wastes no time in bringing Nancy, Robin, and Eddie to the Upside Down. Safe to say, Steve gets to live and even bites off the head of a bat!
Battling The Demogorgon
The scene that we all have been waiting for and believe us when we tell you, the entry of the creature had us floored. You know the screen is pitch black and it suddenly has the tall, thin humanoid creature with elongated limbs leaping right at you. There’s tension, there’s anticipation and the monster looks deadlier than ever. It took the Demogorgon about ten seconds to finish off more than half of the prisoners or more like munch those human heads off.
We know Hopper’s got a plan, especially with a bottle of vodka and a lighter that he managed to steal earlier from one of the prison guards. We also know Demogorgon’s weakness and that’s fire. But there comes a scene when Hopper isn’t really able to light it up and he is literally seen struggling with his lighter. One can only hope that the lighter isn’t out of the liquid and pray that everything works out in his favor.
Thankfully, the prayers were answered and Hopper is seen lighting up his sphere on fire and eventually keeping the monster away from him. While full credits have to be given to Joyce for opening the pit door but had Hooper not thrown his spear into its mouth and temporarily incapacitated the creature, we could have really lost him this time!
Nancy Falls Through The Upside Down
Of course, it is a shocker. Well, you have the whole group reaching Eddie’s trailer as planned and all they have to do is just go through the portal. To be honest, it is a pretty cool scene. Robin happens to be the first one to climb through the other side, followed by Eddie. When it finally comes to Nancy, she starts climbing only to fall deep down through the Upside Down, and now with her eyes rolled back, we know what that means!