Missing kids, secret government operations and a creepy master villain who gets into people’s heads? This Stephen King prequel starkly resembles Stranger Things, though this series is set in the early 1960s, and is driven by the acts of an evil alien clown rather than a vengeful clawed wizard.

The HBO show explores the earlier days of Pennywise the Clown, who’s wreaking havoc on the small town of Derry by kidnapping and killing children. It’s the perfect choice for those who enjoyed the bloodier, more horrifying elements of Stranger Things, but perhaps it’s not for those with a fear of clowns.

Hysteria!

Binge

This horror-comedy could easily have starred Eddie from Stranger Things. Much like the Hellfire Club in Hawkins, the “Dethkrunch” heavy metal band is made up of a group of misfit teens who are quickly blamed for a series of crimes in a small American town. It’s satanic panic at its finest, combined with a string of supernatural occurrences that scream Stranger Things.

Hysteria!, which landed in 2024, explores themes of generational tension, misinformation and, as the name suggests, mass hysteria. It may as well have been set in Stranger Things home town of Hawkins.

Yellowjackets

Paramount+

If it’s the complex dynamic between teens under extreme stress that you’ll miss post-Stranger Things, watch Yellowjackets.

Since premiering in 2021, the horror series has followed a high school girls’ soccer team stranded in the wilderness following a plane crash. Like the Duffer Brothers’ creation, it’s an emotionally raw coming-of-age story, peppered with some seriously twisted psychological drama and even a dash of cannibalism. It’s expected to drop its fourth and final season later this year.

From

Stan*

If Stranger Things taught us anything, it’s that people love watching small towns with big secrets.

From, produced by those who brought us Lost, follows the unfortunate folk who wander into a tiny American town only to realise there’s no way out. To make matters worse, demon monsters come out of the woods at night and kill those who don’t possess a mysterious protective talisman. Like Stranger Things, it’s a bit cult-like, it interrogates the tensions of small-town living, and it spares no punches.

Goosebumps

Disney+

Part of Stranger Things′ beauty was that it was a family affair – both young and older viewers were equally entranced. The 2023 Goosebumps remake is exactly that, reminding parents of their favourite childhood horror books and introducing children to a palatable fright-fest.

A group of five teenagers accidentally unleash supernatural forces while investigating a decades-old death of a fellow teen, leading them to uncover dark secrets from their parents’ pasts. This show, like Stranger Things, is also incredibly nostalgic, harking back to the original Goosebumps books written by R.L. Stine in the 90s.

Paper Girls

Prime Video

Blending 80s nostalgia, sci-fi and themes of friendship and fate, this coming-of-age story is the perfect antidote for the post-Stranger Things blues.

Four newspaper delivery girls are swept up in a time travel battle, forcing them to confront their older selves and a litany of threats. Just like in the Netflix behemoth, the sky turns an unnatural colour, kids ride around on bikes, and they endure all kinds of mind-bending scenarios as they fight to prevent the collapse of the universe.

Fringe

Prime Video

At the heart of Stranger Things lies a parallel universe, as well as fringe science, like psychic ability and teleportation. The same can be said of Fringe, a 2008 procedural sci-fi show in which an FBI agent teams up with a scientist to uncover all kinds of unexplained phenomena and conspiracies.

Twin Peaks (1990)

Paramount+

David Lynch’s surreal 1990s series is often cited as a precursor to Stranger Things. Both series explore the seedy underbelly of seemingly friendly towns.

Twin Peaks’ premise is simple – an FBI agent travels to a small town to investigate the death of a homecoming queen. But what happens thereafter is anything but simple, as he discovers an array of supernatural oddities and bizarre townsfolk.

Stranger Things is now streaming on Netflix.

*Stan is owed by Nine, which also owns this masthead.

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