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5 Things We Learned From the “Stranger Things” Season 2 Teaser
The game was pretty great last night. But for us, it was all about “Stranger Things.”
As promised, the first teaser for the second season of Netflix’s nostalgic series premiered during the Super Bowl last night, and though it was only 30-seconds long, it was more than enough to whet our appetite and, well, let’s be honest: it made us so goddamn happy. We also learned quite a bit about the new season from the trailer, despite how short-but-sweet it may have been.
What did we learn, you ask? Here are the 5 most important things.
1) PREMIERING ON HALLOWEEN!
We knew that “Stranger Things” was returning this year, but it wasn’t until last night that we learned it’ll be hitting Netflix on the most perfect day of the year for it to premiere: Halloween, of course! That’s right, all nine episodes of Season 2 will be available for streaming on October 31st, and if you’re thinking you’ll probably spend the entire day on the couch binging the whole damn thing, just know that you won’t be alone. The wait is a bit longer than expected (Season 1 premiered last July), but we’d rather them take their time than rush to get it up before it’s ready.
2) SET ON HALLOWEEN!
We already picked up on this when the above screen-grab hit the net prior to the Super Bowl, but not only will the second season of “Stranger Things” premiere on Halloween, it’s also set right around Halloween! As evidenced by the kids wearing Ghostbusters costumes (the film was released in June of ’84), the second season looks to take place in late October of 1984 – just about one year after the events of the first season. There’s also a shot in the teaser of Will Byers being tested in the wake of his Upside Down nightmare: the timestamp indicates it’s 10/30/84.
3) NEW MONSTER!
We got two glimpses of the second season’s new monster in the “Stranger Things” Super Bowl spot, first courtesy of a drawing and then an actual shot of the monster against an eerie red backdrop. But what the hell is this creature, which looks like something out of The Mist? You may remember that Season One ended just as it began, with the kids playing Dungeons & Dragons, and in the game they encountered the Thessalhydra: a monster that has multiple, snake-like heads and a deadly tail. Season One’s Demogorgon was inspired by a D&D character, so it stands to reason that the season finale’s reference to the Thessalhydra was a big time Season 2 clue. And judging by what we’ve seen so far, the new monster sure looks similar to the Thessalhydra.
4) ELEVEN LIVES!
Season One of “Stranger Things” ended with Eleven seemingly sacrificing herself to kill the Demogorgon, but we were pretty sure that we hadn’t seen the last of the beloved character. Indeed Millie Bobby Brown will be reprising the role of Eleven in Season 2, and the teaser gave us our first glimpse of her coming back to life. At the start of the teaser, we see her opening her eyes with blood dripping from her nose; fittingly, she’s upside down in that shot. We’ll likely have to wait until October to find out what really happened to Eleven; how is she still alive?!
5) MORE HOMAGES!
One of the coolest things about the first season of “Stranger Things” is that it was loaded with homages to ’80s movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, E.T., and Stand By Me; and it looks like Season 2, also set in the ’80s, will continue that tradition. In less than 30-seconds of footage, we’ve already seen our first homage from Season 2. There’s a shot in the teaser of Will standing in front of an open door, with an otherworldly glow lighting up the sky outside, and that moment is almost directly lifted from Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Should be fun to watch the new season and pick out all the little Easter eggs.
If you missed it, you can watch the Season 2 Super Bowl spot below!
All of us here at Bloody Disgusting are deeply saddened to learn that George A. Romero Foundation Founder and President Suzanne Desrocher-Romero has passed away.
GARF shared in a statement on socials, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Suzanne Desrocher Romero. Suzanne passed away of natural causes on June 24 at her home in Toronto after a prolonged illness.”
The statement continues, “Suzanne was the fierce leader of the George A. Romero Estate and The George A. Romero Foundation. She worked tirelessly to preserve George’s legacy. Her work at the foundation will continue to inspire and live on for generations to come. The family asks for privacy at this time.”
Desrocher-Romero founded GARF in 2018, after her late husband’s passing in 2017, and has been a fierce advocate for his legacy and the arts. It was her mission to “strengthen horror as a serious field of global study,” and she was a tremendous fighter on behalf of Romero’s works and supporting new filmmakers inspired by his legacy.
It was Desrocher-Romero who spearheaded the recovery and restoration of The Amusement Park, and, as the person in charge of the George A. Romero estate, worked closely with author Daniel Kraus on completing unfinished novels like Pay the Piper and The Living Dead. She most recently celebrated the restoration of her favorite of Romero’s zombie films, Day of the Dead, and was hard at work producing the upcoming film Twilight of the Dead.
That passionate advocacy led to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero becoming family to Bloody Disgusting as well.
2023 marked the start of an ongoing partnership between Bloody FM and GARF on The Dead, a scripted audio series spanning multiple seasons that saw Desrocher-Romero working closely with the Bloody FM team and mentoring the series’s contributing writers with GARF. To say her loss will be felt internally is an understatement.
“Anytime George Romero is mentioned is good, because what we are doing is to provide a healthy legacy. We’re uplifting his legacy, we’re supporting the archive, and we’re also supporting the Horror Study Center. So, all of these three things are what the Foundation is striving to do. As far as I’m concerned, the more we say George Romero’s name, the better it is,” Desrocher-Romero recently told BD.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of her unwavering enthusiasm for supporting Romero’s legacy and the horror genre, and just a glimpse at how much she contributed to preserving it. She is, in short, an inspiration.
We send our deepest condolences to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero’s family, friends, and GARF.
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