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Movies & Series 20 June 2022, 19:56

author: Marek Jura

The Classic Movies That Inspired Stranger Things

The Duffer brothers' Stranger Things has stolen the hearts of adventure horror fans, richly drawing on both 80s style and more contemporary teen dramas. The success of the Netflix series, however, would not have been possible without inspiration.

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The Amityville Horror

The Amityville Horror, 1979, Stuart Rosenberg

  1. Year: 1979
  2. Directed by: Stuart Rosenberg
  3. Genre: horror
  4. Where to watch: iTunes Store

The Amityville case rocked the America in the 1970s. If you're to believe Georg Lutz and his wife Kathy, the house was haunted ever since the brutal murder of members of his own family by a young man, forcing new dwellers to move out just after 28 days.

Stuart Rosenberg's film is based on testimonies and a book by Jay Anson titled Amityville Horror. There's no shortage of jumpscares in the movie, but its greatest thrust is the powerful atmosphere of understatement. The developers simply don't explain some of the events. Perhaps that's why this horror has aged so well – and remains genuinely scary even today.

One of the threads of Stranger Things' season four refers to this film. The Duffers didn't copy The Amityville Horror plot directly, but they used a whole lot of references over the course of several episodes. However, as almost all of them can be considered spoilers, we can't write anything more – until you watch the latest episodes, you'll have to take our word!

Marek Jura

Marek Jura

In 2016, he graduated in philology at UAM. Since then, he has been reviewing prose, poetry, movies, series, and video games for GRYOnline.pl. He took his first steps in the journalism industry as a newsman in a local tabloid. He ran his own company - he designed, created, tested, and sold board games. He published several short stories and is also preparing his debut volume of poetry. Trains martial arts. A feminist, vegan, fan of pineapple on pizza, cat lover, dislikes Bethesda and Amazon, likes Lovecraft, Agents of SHIELD, P:T, Beksiński, Hollow Knight, performance, abstract art, game mods and dumplings.

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