Stranger Things premiered as a limited series on Netflix in 2016, with eight episodes. The plot is set in the 1980s in the little Indiana town of Hawkins. In the pilot, Will goes missing, but his mother Joyce is certain that her son is still alive.
She gets a strange call with static and heavy breathing, followed by nasty sounds that sound like hungry animals. She later theorises that her son is talking with her from another realm and begs for her assistance.
Hawkins is the ideal site to bring you back to your favourite decade if you feel nostalgic for the good old ’80s. They appear to have everything, from clunky walkie-talkies to rotary landline phones. With its soundtrack and large bright red title board set against a black screen, the show not only pays homage to the decade, but it also recreates legendary scenes from films like ET and Alien.
In this video, we’ll speak about the big terrible creatures that our beloved kids have faced throughout the last three seasons.
The Mind Flayer
The Mind Flayer is the most terrible monster introduced so far in this realm. He is the foe of Eleven, our beloved boy with superpowers. He isn’t one of those monsters who squishes people left and right. He is precise, cunning, and possesses the capacity to manipulate people in the actual world while remaining in the Upside Down.
We get our first glimpse of the monstrosity that he is when Will begins to have visions of the Upside Down leaking into the real world. Initially referred to as the Shadow Monster, the kids rename him the Mind Flayer because of the similarities he bears with the character from Dungeons and Dragons.
Both of them are tentacled beasts with the ability to control the psyche of their victims. From the show we have learned that it is possible to break free of the Mind Flayers’ control once you remember the happy memories about your friends and family.
Will Byers is able to do so at the end of Season 2, freeing himself from the Mind Flayer and instructing his allies to lock the doorway to Upside Down. Although Eleven is successful in banishing him and closing the barrier, a part of the Mind Flayer remains in the real world.
He is able to escape free months later by eating rats. He has the ability to not only control others, but also to melt and merge them into a better entity that serves his goals. Will can sense the Mind Flayer’s presence due to a tingling feeling on the back of his neck, as he was once possessed by him.
After learning about Eleven and her powers, the Mind Flayer begins to perceive her as a threat and openly goes after her. He is able to get a hold of her when she finds Billy using her abilities. Billy is one of the Flayed, who brings other victims for the Mind Flayer.
At the end of season three, he is able to resist the control of the Mind Flayer once his sister Max reminds him of the happy memories they spent together. Unfortunately, their victory is short-lived as he gets killed by the behemoth.
The Mind Flayer, unlike the other monsters, is the only one who has spoken to another character. “You let us in,” he tells Eleven through Billy. You’re going to have to let us stay now. Don’t you see what I’m talking about? This whole time.
We’ve been constructing it. It’s something we’ve been working on… for you. All of that effort, all of that suffering, it’s all for you. It’s now or never. It’s past time to put a stop to it. And we’re going to put an end to you. And after you’re gone, we’ll terminate your friendships. Then we’ll call it a night… everyone.”
This particular message has sparked speculations and conspiracy theories about The Mind Flayers’ connection to Eleven. We saw in season two that Eleven was not the only child who was experimented upon in the Hawkins Lab. We meet number Eight, who has the ability to make others hallucinate.
So far we know about the abilities of the Mind Flayer and we know that he did escape when a portal to the Upside Down cracked open at the Hawkins Lab. There’s a teeny tiny possibility of him being the first test subject.
We don’t know the origin story of the Mind Flayer but that doesn’t stop us from guessing. Was it a coincidence that most of his flayed victims were working for The Hawkins Post? Maybe he was getting revenge for a past cover-up. It might have been a fire accident that took away his human form, hence his fear of fireworks and warm temperatures.
Remembering joyful moments with friends and family is what helps you break free from his grip, therefore it’s possible that’s exactly what he’s been denied his entire life, making it one of his flaws.
It’s possible that at the moment of his death, he constructed the Upside Down as a haven and training ground for people with psychic abilities plotting revenge on humanity. Eleven, he believes, is a traitor to his cause because he is a human ally. We may learn more about his genuine roots in the coming season.
The Demogorgon
Will admits to Mike minutes before vanishing that the Demogorgon tricked him into playing Dungeons and Dragons. He runs into the Demogorgon while racing back home, who catches him and drags him to the Upside Down.
The sharks in Jaws inspired the flower-headed humanoid. Demogorgons, like sharks, hunt their prey primarily on instinct rather than intelligence. They can smell blood from afar and like to drag their prey back to their natural habitat before dining on them.
Eleven was the first one to make contact with the Demogorgon. Dr. Martin Brenner had placed Eleven inside a sensory deprivation tank to eavesdrop on a Russian Spy. Even though she was successful in her task, she unknowingly encountered the beast and panicked. But Dr. Brenner’s curiosity had been peaked by the monster.
He sent Eleven down once again, and this time to make contact. As soon as she touches the Demogorgon, cracks begin to appear at the walls of Hawkins Lab. A portal to the Upside Down has now been opened into the real world. The Demogorgon travels between the two planes, as he pleases until he is defeated by Eleven.
Throughout season one, the main antagonist was the Demogorgon as he terrorized our favorite characters and attacked their best friends, Will Byers and Barbara. Will admits to Mike minutes before vanishing that the Demogorgon tricked him into playing Dungeons and Dragons.
He runs into the Demogorgon while racing back home, who catches him and drags him to the Upside Down. The sharks in Jaws inspired the flower-headed humanoid. Demogorgons, like sharks, hunt their prey primarily on instinct rather than intelligence. They can smell blood from afar and like to drag their prey back to their natural habitat before dining on them.
Few of the scenes with the Demogorgon had been shot with Mark Steger in costume, as the creators wanted the actors to be able to interact with the beast in real-time. The rest was edited with CGI. This helped to recreate the vibes of horror movies in the eighties.
The artists were instructed to create a humanoid creature with no face and just a mouth. After multiple sketches of asymmetrical creatures, the final version was brought to life. Eleven did defeat a Demogorgon at the end of the first season, but unfortunately for Hawkins, there are many more of those from where they came from. Hopefully, we will get to see them kill more people in season four, when we are not in Hawkins anymore.
D’Artagnan
From season two, D’Artagnan, sometimes known as Dart, is Dustin’s Demodog. Will had thrown up a slug-like thing and had reoccurring nightmares of being back in the Upside Down after his return from the Upside Down.
Dustin hears someone digging through the trash can on Halloween night, after the kids have returned from Trick-or-Treating. He notices a slug-like thing flipping around the lid after a closer look.
Dustin decides to keep the slug as a pet, believing he has discovered a new species. He gives the slug a Three Musketeers Nougat bar, which it instantly devours. He names his new pet after one of the characters from the eponymous novel, D’Artagnan or Darth Vader.
The next day he takes Dart to school, to be studied by their science teacher to confirm his discovery of a new species. He shows Dart to the other boys, where Will recognizes how similar it is to the slug he had regurgitated. Terrified, he informs the others that the slug is a creature from the Upside Down. While the rest of them try to attack and capture Dart, Dustin sneaks him out via his cap. The slug evolves into a froglike species.
A few days later, Dart has another growth spurt and now starts to bear resemblance to the Petal-headed Demogorgon who terrorized the kids the previous year. To make matters worse, Dart ends up eating Mews, Dustin’s cat. Scared by the carnivorous nature of his pet, Dustin gears up in a hockey costume and chases Dart into a storm shelter with his hockey stick.
He calls Steve for assistance, to help him capture his Demogorgon pet. Dart escapes them by digging a tunnel. The next time they see Dart, he has grown into a Demodog. He was angry at Dustin at first for chasing him down with a hockey stick, but they make up once he is offered a Nougat bar.
He allows the children to pass through the tunnels. The emotional reunion was significant since we discovered that even the Demogorgon could be freed from the Mind Flayer’s grasp. The reunion was short-lived, however, as Eleven shut the gate and those Demodogs who were unable to cross over to the Upside Down died when their connection was severed.
D’Artagnan showed five stages of growth, He went from being a slug-like Pollywog to a froglike creature. From a Frogogorgon he evolved into the Catogorgon, big enough to eat a cat. As an adolescent, he is roughly the size of a big dog and much like them walks on all fours, earning him the name of Demodog.
He has the ability to excavate tunnels through the earth and his skin is thick enough to withstand a bullet. He is able to recognize Dustin, a long time after being separated from him.
So far he is the only creature from the Upside Down to have resisted the control of the Mind Flayer. Maybe there’s a chance that other fauna from Upside Down are able to do the same. Dart is proof that all Demodogs aren’t evil by nature, but they will move on from their nougat diet.
Puberty was the catalyst for Dart’s transformation from Pollywog to Frogogorgon. It reminded me of the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly, which isn’t as attractive as it sounds.
The majority of our key characters are prepubescent, and the transition to adulthood is a stressful experience for them. In the first two stages, Dart was created with the intention of concealing his origin. Dustin would take him in as a pet if he appeared harmless and non-threatening.
Dart’s colour darkened, his skin thickened, and fanged petals replaced his face in the third stage. Dustin hid from Dart beneath a shelter on stage, revealing his predatory nature. Dustin and Darts’ relationship was similar to Billy and the Gremlins relationship from the movie Gremlins, as both of them unknowingly raise a predatory creature. Not surprisingly, Gremlins was one of the influences behind the sound design of Dart.
The Spider Monster
The Spider Creature is a fusion of the flayed’s melting remains, which assumed the form of a monstrous tentacled monster to hunt and kill Eleven and her friends. The Mind Flayer controlled the Spider, who had the same dislike to heat and explosives as the Mind Flayer. The Russians created a hidden facility beneath the Starcourt Mall and used one of the Keys to open the Upside Down.
The Mind Flayer was reintroduced to the actual world as a result of their experiment. By feeding rats under Brimborn Steelworks and melting and fusing them into a greater species, he began to regain control. He had run out of rodents to do his bidding, so he caused Billy’s car to crash near the steel mill.
Once Billy went back to inspect the cause, the Mind Flayer took control of him, just as he had possessed Will the previous year, and used him to spy on the Hawkins Lab. Billy being the physically stronger host, brought in more victims to the steel mill to be flayed including his colleague Heather.
The Mind Flayer later used Billy as bait to lure in Eleven and attack her. During the showdown at Starcourt Mall, a part of the Spider Monster ends up inside Eleven’s leg. She does use her power to pull it out but a fragment remains under her skin. This ends up severely affecting and weakening her abilities for months after the fight is over.
The Spider Monster, like the Demogorgon, is a faceless abnormality. It’s enormous, and he’s getting bigger by the second as more melting Flayed remains combine into his physical form. While the other kids try to distract the Spider Monster by firing fireworks at him, Max reaches out to Billy and manages to free him from the Mind Flayers’ grip.
When Billy has recovered, he confronts the Spider Monster, allowing his sisters and friends to flee. The Spider Monster, enraged by his betrayal, stabs Billy with his tentacles, killing him. Meanwhile, Joyce and Hopper rush to close the gate using the second key. Hopper ends up sacrificing himself as it is too late for him to get back to safety.
It is hinted in the closing scene of season three and trailer of season 4 that Hopper has survived and somehow ended up in a Russian Prison. With Eleven splitting the Spider Monster’s face in half and Joyce closing the gate, the Spider Monsters’ connection to the Mind Flayer was severed and he dropped dead like the Demodogs from the previous season.
The Hospital Monster
Nancy received a call from Doris Driscoll about rabid rats eating her fertiliser while interning for The Hawkins Post. Nancy, under the pretence of being a reporter, accompanies Jonathan to meet Doris without her supervisors’ knowledge.
Doris takes them to her basement to show them one of the rodents she has caught. The rat melts and escapes the trap moments after the pair leaves the house, transforming into biomass.
The next day, Nancy and Jonathan return to follow up on the story, but no one answers the door. Worried that Doris might be injured; they break in and find Doris eating from the bag of fertilizers. They immediately call an ambulance to hospitalize her but Doris keeps screaming that she has to go back.
Nancy visits Doris at the hospice and notices black veins on her, recognizing the symptoms from when Will was possessed by the Mind Flayer. On learning about his return, Nancy and Jonathan visit Doris once again, this time with the intention of freeing her in the hopes that she’ll lead them to where the Mind Flayer is hiding.
Doris is nowhere to be found, much to their amazement, yet Bruce Lowe and Tom Holloway wait for her. Both of their bodies melt and merge into each other in the hallway once they are slain, taking on the shape of a crablike monster.
Nancy is pursued by the creature, and Jonathan races after them to assist her. Nancy manages to hide behind a closed door, but the monster melts into the room and reverts to his old form, attacking Nancy.
Eleven arrives just in time to push the thing away from Nancy, prompting him to jump out the window. The gang quickly follows after him, but once again he dissolves and goes down the drainpipe, merging into the Spider Monster as the other Flayed Humans follow suit.
The Hospital Monster is a miniature version of the Spider Monster, which the gang goes up against in the final episode. The moment it melts and passes through the door to attack Nancy is truly terrifying as you fear for her dear life; thankfully Eleven was just around the corner to save the day as she always does.
The Hospital Monster gives us a teeny tiny glimpse of the extent of the Mind Flayers. We can only assume how powerful the actual hive is if the party were to face him one-on-one.
Hawkins Tunnel System
Will has been seeing glimpses of the Mind Flayer for a long time after being rescued from the Upside Down. Knowing that her kid could struggle to communicate vocally, she encouraged him to scribble whenever he was afraid. Will began to draw his visions since he was now connected to The Mind Flayer via a hive mind, allowing him to see what the Mind Flayer saw.
The visions appeared to be random patterns at first glance, but when they were spread out in the Byers’ living room and placed in the precise order, they revealed a Maze-like pattern. Hopper went to MerrillsPumpkin Patch, believing the pictures indicated vines, and began digging up the earth.
After digging, he found a tunnel filled with the carcasses of creatures from the Upside Down. While exploring the shaft, he came across a growth that squirted a poisonous spray into his face, making him lose consciousness.
Will gets a vision of Hopper lying in the passageway, and immediately alerts Joyce that Hopper is in trouble. Joyce calls over Bob to help because of his expertise with Puzzles. Bob realizes that the pattern is a map of Hawkins and pinpoints Hopper’s exact location.
Meanwhile, Hopper wakes up in the Tunnel and realizes he’s in trouble. On coming upon an intersection, he discovers that the Tunnels are vulnerable to fire. Using a torn piece of his sleeve and carcass, he creates a torch and marches ahead. Soon exhaustion gets to him, and so do the vines.
Thankfully, Joyce and Bob are able to find Hopper and rescue him from the tunnels. Will begins to convolute and collapse on the earth above him. He is brought to Hawkins Lab’s infirmary, where he is diagnosed with a virus that links him to all of the Upside Down’s other host bodies.
Will takes advantage of the situation and dispatches all of the scientists to the vines in search of the Mind Flayer. It comes out that the Mind Flayer set the trap to kill them all. Will admits that the Mind Flayer forced him to do it when he broke out of his influence, but it is too late to save them.
Lucas, Dustin, Max, and Steve go to the tunnels to light it on fire, while Hopper and Eleven arrive just in time to shut the gates. Once the gate is closed, the tunnel along with all other creatures from the Upside Down that were left behind in the real world, die after losing their connection to the Mind Flayer.
The Hawkins Tunnel System was a creature from the Upside Down, which took the shape of a series of tunnels and also served as a graveyard for dead animals from both dimensions. The network was built by the art department on a sound stage. Six to fourteen feet diameter wooden ring sets were used for the construction.
Backlight made of plywood rings, wrapped by chicken wire was used to encompass the light in the tunnels for cinematographer Tim Ives. VFX was later layered on to create the eerie graveyard vibes.
After the second season, the Tunnel System has yet to emerge. It is terrible enough to make you feel claustrophobic and fill you with anxiety of ending up as a corpse glowing on its surface, filled with animal carcasses, deadly spore clusters, and carnivorous vines.
The Vines
Stranger Things’ Vines is an underappreciated enemy. They can chase you around and hang you upside down. The vines are initially seen around Barbara so closely that she suffocates to death. A vine gets stuck down Will’s throat and wraps around his lungs when he is discovered on the Upside Down. Will is freed from the Vines’ clutches thanks to bullets and hard force from Hopper.
In season two, the Vines reemerge under the Hawkins Tunnel System, following Hopper and eventually entangling him. Joyce and Bob come to his rescue just in time. While the kids make their way out of the tunnel, Mike gets left behind when a tendril ties up his leg and pulls him down. Fortunately, Steve grabs Mike and saves him from certain death.
The hive mentality of the creatures from Upside Down is confirmed when a scientist in the Hawkins Lab sets fire to a part of the vines and Will begins to screech in pain as all of them are connected to the Mind Flayer.
The vines, like all other Flayed species, are sensitive to fire and high temperatures. The Vines are more horrifying than the other animals since you don’t see them coming; unlike the Demogorgon, they don’t make any noise.
Although the vines resemble climbers, they are just as predatory as reptiles in nature. They could be growing unseen in your backyard until you’re dragged into the Upside Down.
The Flayed
The Flayed refers to the different humans and rodents who have been infected by The Mind Flayer. Will Byers was the first to be contaminated, and he is the only Mind Flayer survivor thus far. The Vines were employed by the Mind Flayer to transform him into a host that lied to the scientists in order to lead them to a death trap.
Will’s family placed him near heaters to liberate him. Once the Russians used one of the keys to unlock the Upside Down, the Mind Flayers section, which had been dormant in the real world, was activated. The Mind Flayer induced the rats to eat chemicals, causing the pipes to explode, allowing him to escape. He then lured in Billy Hargrove, who became the primary host to do his bidding.
All Flayed are connected through a Hive mind. When one of them gets injured, every one of them shares the pain. The Mind Flayer also uses the connection to send blasts of psychic powers to help them fight against the others.
The Flayed in season three acted differently from Will in season two. Will, for example, never displayed the urge to feed on chemicals and fertilizers. However, all of the Flayed share the same aversion to warm temperature and fire as the Mind Flayer.
Although it is possible to break away from his control, the majority of Flayed just follow orders and do what they are told. The Flayed’s most heinous trait is their capacity to melt and transform together into a larger monster.
The sequence where all of the Flayed simply melt and join together to become the Spider Monster is extremely revolting. The fact that the Flayed are only there to serve as minions does not make them any less scary. The total number of flayed who died as a result of the Starcourt mall fire is estimated to be around 30 humans and hundreds of rodents.
We look forward to seeing more horrifying monsters in season four. Until Hopper returns to our screens, remember to keep the door open three inches.