Spoilers ahead
One of the things us, 'Stranger Things' fans, live for, are the 80s references, like the constant allusion to 'The Goonies', for example. With the premiere of the second season, we've had a lot of analysis, and some fans have since found several links to Stephen King's 'It'. The novel was made into a miniseries at the end of the 80s, and of course, achieved great success with its film adaptation, released back in September of this year.
Both storylines feature a group of children who have to face a monster, (a clown in 'It' and a Demogorgon in 'Stranger Things'), however, there are a lot more similarities between the two. Let's take the Netflix series character Bob Newby, Joyce's boyfriend from Maine, who mentions that as a child he used to be scared of a clown. Newby would have been a child during the 50s, around the same time that 'It' would've been present and active. What's more, is that the clown magically stopped appearing once Bob confronted it, exactly what happens in Stephen King's creation.
For those super fans, there's even a similarity in the script. Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler in the series, also appeared in 'It', and the actor says exactly the same line in both productions; "Holy shit, what happened to you?"
Finn Wolfhard says the same line in both #StrangerThings and the movie IT pic.twitter.com/70RvYf1AwG
? Stranger Facts (@UpsideDownFacts) October 29, 2017
The Duffer brothers confess
So, what do the Duffer brothers have to say? That the whole thing was intentional, of course. Matt Duffer spoke to Vulture: "Well, we both have a problem with clowns. I've had it my entire life. I had it when I was really little, so when there were clowns at a party, it was a real problem for me. Then in 1990, we saw the It mini-series and Tim Curry's performance as Pennywise really messed me up. Like, it scarred me in a major way. It was one of the first true horror things I had seen, and I had not experienced Stephen King before. That was my first experience with Stephen King, so that was a really huge point in my life. It was two weeks, at least, of no sleep because of that. So yeah, I think [Bob's clown story] was really me describing something that just freaked me out. I didn't have that experience myself. I just had nightmares like that."
Speaking about why they decided to include the link, Duffer mentioned, "we were just like, "«It would be cute if [Bob] suggests moving to Maine, right next to Stephen King». Stephen King exists in this world. Some of the characters have read Stephen King. But Bob definitely does not read Stephen King. He's not interested at all in Stephen King because he hates that kind of story."
