And we do mean more. More creepy creatures, more special effects, more over-the-top Winona Ryder, whose non-stop borderline hysteria becomes a special effect all by itself....
The creators-writers-directors, the Duffer brothers, have had all manner of praise heaped on them for one essential achievement.......plowing through early Stephen King and all the 1980's science fiction/fantasy films of Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante like two starving men attacking a smorgasbord.
Filling up their series with enough reverential homages to fully replicate the era of the films they sampled, the Duffers delighted one and all with their expansive epic of a small town and its plucky children besieged by malevolent otherworldly forces.
A basic problem arises in the "you ain't seen nothin' yet" approach to the show's second season......
Given all the traumatic events suffered by the characters.....child abductions, child torture, alternate-dimension monsters running amuck, the grisly disappearance and death of an innocent teen, the science-gone-awry of a shadowy government agency..........why would any rational human being choose to keep living in this town?
As far as we can figure out, they all stay for the simple reason that Netflix ordered up another 9 episodes.......the only thing missing: having them all wear caps that read "Make America Weird Again".....
The show trots out a bigger monster this time and an increased level of misery for show's most victimized, vulnerable character......(the gore quotient also rises, ensuring that some people won't be around for Season 3.....)
And in an odder plot development, the small town's Dept.Of Scientific Evil Headquarters still fully operates, continuing to futilely cope with the hole they've punched into the nasty, gooey Alternate Dimension. In fact, the townsfolk unwisely use the place as a medical clinic.....(presided over by an older, heavier Paul Reiser, doing a more benevolent version of his "Aliens" corporate snark)......personally, we think they'd be way better off stopping in to a Walgreens walk-in clinic or signing up for Obamacare.....
It's all still a huge entertaining wallow in all your favorite moments from all your 1980's faves.....there's even an extended, heart-tugging sequence that evokes John Hughes....and we sat back and admired the Duffer brothers for the sheer reckless abandon of their Barnum & Bailey showmanship........smiling at the thought of who-know-what they''ll have to do to top all this in Season 3.....
Which naturally will make us ask the same question.....why is anybody still living in this insane town?? (Although we won't wonder about that in regard to Winona's character, since she seems to enjoy living in a permanent state of anxious frenzy....)
3 nostalgic stars (***)......and we strongly suggest a Season 3 in which the populace considers an alternate health-care provider.....
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