NetflixStranger Things has never shied away from referencing classic 1980s movies, but the final season just ripped off one of the most beloved Christmas movies of all time… And it ruled.
Fans have been waiting over three years to find out what’s happened to Hawkins after the heroes’ fight with Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) weakened the barrier between our world and the Upside Down.
Now that Stranger Things Season 5 has finally dropped (and it even crashed Netflix), his plan is even more mysterious and seems to be taking inspiration from A Wrinkle in Time.
But the science-fiction novel isn’t the only thing Stranger Things Season 5 is inspired by, because one sequence in Episode 3 completely rips off a Christmas classic.
Stranger Things did Home Alone, but with a Demogorgon
NetflixThe Duffer brothers have always referenced classic 1980s movies in the Netflix series, but Stranger Things just did Home Alone with a Demogorgon, instead of the Wet Bandits.
In Episode 3 “The Turnbow Trap,” the Hawkins gang hatch a plan to track the Demogorgon through the Upside Down with some tech help from Murray (Brett Gelman) after Will is able to use his visions to figure out Vecna is planning to kidnap another kid in Holly Wheeler’s (Nell Fisher) class, Derek.
After drugging the family and getting them out of the house, the Hawkins gang do some impromptu home renovations to turn the entire house into a Demogorgon trap. When the slimy creature eventually rips its way into our world, Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) soaks it in gasoline, it gets impaled by nails in a plank of wood, before falling into a bed of barbed wire. Nancy (Natalia Dyer) then shoots it with the tracking device, and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) sets it alight with a flare. Gnarly!
It’s like the way Kevin McCallister rigs his entire home like a trap from Saw to torture the Wet Bandits in the first Home Alone movie, just with an actual monster and more lethal weaponry. Although Stranger Things is a lot darker than the Home Alone sequel pitched by Macaulay Culkin, but Kevin would’ve definitely fit in with the Hawkins crew.
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While you’re waiting for the second volume of Stranger Things Season 5, check out the theory about Eleven’s “real” father, read our ranking of the 50 best TV shows of all time, and discover the forgotten French horror movie with the exact same plot of Home Alone.