Why Tales From '85 Demands an 80s Movie Warm-Up
Hawkins is about to get animated — literally. Stranger Things: Tales From '85 lands on Netflix April 23, slotting into the timeline in winter 1985, right in the snowy gap between seasons 2 and 3, with the first two episodes even getting an early theatrical bow at AMC cinemas on April 18. It's a love-letter spinoff from the Duffer Brothers and showrunner Eric Robles, and if the trailer is any indication, it's going to lean even harder into the pop-cultural stew that made the flagship series a phenomenon.
Case in point: Netflix's own Tudum has confirmed that the sharklike snow monster stalking our heroes this time out is a direct Jaws riff — a flashing neon sign that this spinoff isn't just expanding lore, it's cranking the homage dial to eleven (pun fully intended).
So before you press play on April 23, here's your prep kit: 18 specific 80s films (plus one essential 70s bonus) that the Duffer Brothers have openly cribbed from, each paired with the exact strand of Hawkins DNA it carries. We've sorted them into four lanes that map neatly onto science-fiction movies and horror movies on RandomFlix — sci-fi terror, coming-of-age, small-town horror, and teen cinema.
Sci-Fi Terror: The Monsters Behind the Demogorgon
The Upside Down didn't spring from nowhere. The Duffers built their creature grammar from a very specific shelf of late-70s and 80s sci-fi nightmares.
Alien (1979)
Ridley Scott's claustrophobic masterpiece is the bedrock. The Demogorgon's silhouette, the way Hawkins Lab corridors feel like the Nostromo, the entire "thing loose in the vents" tension — it all traces back here. If you only rewatch one sci-fi horror before April 23, make it this one.
Aliens (1986)
James Cameron's sequel is the other half of the coin — it's where Hopper gets his rescue-mission energy and where the ensemble-heroics template lives. Every time the Hawkins crew suits up for a tunnel raid, that's Aliens pulsing underneath.
The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter's icy paranoia piece is arguably the single most important tonal blueprint for Tales From '85. A snowbound setting, a shape-shifting predator, practical effects that leave scars — Carpenter's fingerprints are all over the Duffers' work. Expect the animated spinoff to quote it liberally.
Firestarter (1984)
Eleven's origin story in all but name. Government lab, psychic child, fleeing father figure — Mark L. Lester's Stephen King adaptation is essentially the Eleven pilot episode with Drew Barrymore in the lead.
Scanners (1981)
David Cronenberg gave us the mythology of kids with dangerous minds. The nosebleeds, the telekinetic showdowns, the sense that wielding these powers costs something — Eleven inherits all of it from Scanners.
Altered States (1980)
Ken Russell's hallucinogenic fever dream is where the sensory-deprivation tank comes from. That salt-water chamber Eleven climbs into in the middle school gym? Pure Altered States lineage.
Coming-of-Age: The Heart of Hawkins' Kid Gang
Monsters sell the posters, but the kids on bikes sell the show. This quartet is where the emotional architecture of Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will was quietly drafted.
Stand By Me (1986)
Rob Reiner's Stephen King adaptation is the bike-riding, railroad-walking, four-best-friends-on-a-mission template. Swap the dead body for a missing friend and a psychic girl, and you've basically got season 1.
The Goonies (1985)
The ensemble kid-adventure the Duffers name-check more than any other. Richard Donner's treasure-hunt classic taught Stranger Things how to let a gang of loud, overlapping, walkie-talkie-wielding kids carry an entire movie's emotional weight.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Spielberg's masterpiece is the suburban-kid-meets-the-unknown beat distilled. Mike hiding Eleven in his basement is Elliott hiding E.T. in his closet. The bike-chase silhouette against a full moon? You already know.
Explorers (1985)
The deep-cut pick. Joe Dante's underrated sci-fi kid adventure feels like a Tales From '85 prequel in spirit — three misfit boys, a homemade spacecraft, a curiosity about what's out there that shades into awe and terror. If you've never seen it, this is the weekend.
Want the full spread? Browse Open this filter on RandomFlix for the extended syllabus.
Small-Town Horror: When Hawkins Gets Haunted
This is the lane that turns a cul-de-sac into a crime scene — the films that taught the Duffers how to make Indiana feel both cozy and cursed.
Poltergeist (1982)
Tobe Hooper and Spielberg's suburban nightmare is Stranger Things' most obvious haunted-house ancestor. Otherworldly portals in a kid's bedroom, a family ripped apart by forces they can't see — Will Byers' season 1 arc owes this one a royalty check.
The Monster Squad (1987)
Fred Dekker's kids-versus-monsters comedy-horror hybrid is the tonal sweet spot Stranger Things hits on its best nights — genuine scares, genuine laughs, a gang of misfit kids armed with library books and bravado.
The Gate (1987)
A literal portal to hell opens in a suburban backyard. If that's not the most Upside-Down-coded premise of the decade, nothing is. Stephen Dorff's feature debut is essential prep.
Carrie (1976)
Brian De Palma's psychic-teen template is still the ur-text for every big Eleven set piece. The pulverizing final-act catharsis, the blood-and-telekinesis imagery, the sympathetic-monster gaze — Eleven's biggest moments still run on Carrie fuel.
Fright Night (1985)
Next-door-neighbor evil, a teenage believer, a reluctant adult sidekick. Tom Holland's vampire comedy is the exact energy of Dustin dragging Steve into one more impossible situation.
More on this wavelength over at 1980s movies horror.
Teen Cinema: Steve, Nancy, and the Hawkins High Hallways
Before Steve was the world's greatest babysitter, he was a John Hughes archetype. Before Nancy was mowing down demo-dogs, she was navigating a love triangle at a locker. This lane is the high school half of Hawkins.
Pretty in Pink (1986)
The Nancy-Steve-Jonathan triangle is sourced directly from Howard Deutch's Hughes-penned classic. The aesthetic, the class tension, the prom-as-emotional-battlefield — it's all here.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
Amy Heckerling's loose, hangout-comedy tone is the looseness the Duffers leaned on whenever Hawkins High needed to feel lived-in. Every cafeteria scene, every parking-lot hang.
Risky Business (1983)
Steve Harrington's entire season 1 vibe — the hair, the Ray-Bans, the suburban-kid-playing-grown-up swagger — is pulled straight from young Tom Cruise. It's almost cosplay.
Stripes (1981)
Hopper's irreverent, rule-bending authority-figure energy owes a lot to Bill Murray's Army goofball. The "competent when it counts, insufferable otherwise" archetype starts here.
Pair these with 80s-high-school movies picks for a full Hawkins High double-feature.
The Jaws Connection: Why Tales From '85's Snow Monster Matters
Here's the kicker. Netflix Tudum has confirmed the animated spinoff's sharklike snow monster is a direct Jaws homage — which tells us two important things about Tales From '85.
First, the spinoff's appetite isn't limited to the 80s. Reaching back to Spielberg's 1975 shark picture means the writers' room is pulling from the entire genre-cinema canon, not just the decade the show is set in. Second — and more exciting — it signals that Tales From '85 is going to play with monster-movie suspense structure, not just lore. Jaws isn't a creature-feature because of the shark; it's a creature-feature because of how long Spielberg makes you wait for the shark. Expect the same discipline here.
The bonus assignment, then, is obvious: queue Jaws (1975) as your 19th watch. It's the Rosetta Stone for why the Duffers and Robles keep winning.
Build Your Hawkins Marathon on RandomFlix
You don't need to watch all 18 (okay, 19) before April 23. You just need a smart triple feature. Here's the formula:
- One sci-fi terror — The Thing if you want to match the winter setting, Alien if you want the Lab vibes.
- One coming-of-age — The Goonies for maximum kid-gang energy, Stand By Me for the feels.
- One small-town horror — The Monster Squad for tonal overlap, The Gate for pure Upside-Down DNA.
Use RandomFlix's runtime and certification filters to slot it all into a single evening. Or — and this is the fun option — hit the dice and let the app build you a surprise 80s night from the full catalog. Half the charm of Hawkins is never quite knowing what's coming out of the woods.
Press play, grab the Eggos, and don't look at the snowbanks too long.