20 Nostalgic Facts About the Movies That Inspired 'Stranger Things'

Folks, our favorite scene from Nostalgic Things was when Poindexter Nostalgic (that awkward nerd) and Chad Nostalgic (that dreamy bad boy) fought the terrifying N’ost’Alg’ic monster at the Nostalgia Mall. Damn, what a good show. Anyway, all jokes aside, Stranger Things really milks nostalgia, uh? To be sure, the show has some great moments of originality, particularly in its first, insanely fun season, and in Season 4, which was pretty brutal and awesome. So we don’t mean to trash the show, not at all. But it is also undeniable that it tends to be a bit too obvious with its references and influences (and more influences).

In any case, we here at Cracked love metatextuality so much we even learned the word “metatextuality.” Thus, in this Pictofact we discuss a bunch of movies that have inspired Netflix’s show, most of them belonging to the overrated decade in which a truly world-destroying and mind-scrambling creature of Lovecraftian horror began feeding off of our reality. Now, some of Stranger Things’ influences are clear and overt, while others are inspirations the Duffer brothers have acknowledged as possible subconscious inspirations. Perhaps. But do these references help figure out the show's many, many puzzles and unanswered questions? We don’t know, we’re dumb. What we do know, however, is that Everything Sucks’ use of Tori Amos was way cooler than Stranger Things’ use of Kate Bush, but that didn’t become a meme. Get to it, internet.