The official trailer for “Stranger Things 4” made its way online this week (watch here!), giving us a nice little preview of the horrors that await in the brand new season. “Volume One” of Season 4 heads to Netflix on May 27th – ahead of “Volume Two” on July 1st – and we now know that the next batch of episodes take place six months after the events of Season 3.

Here’s the official plot synopsis for “Stranger Things” Season 4…

“It’s been six months since the Battle of Starcourt, which brought terror and destruction to Hawkins. Struggling with the aftermath, our group of friends are separated for the first time – and navigating the complexities of high school hasn’t made things any easier.

“In this most vulnerable time, a new and horrifying supernatural threat surfaces, presenting a gruesome mystery that, if solved, might finally put an end to the horrors of the Upside Down.”

This season’s “new and horrifying supernatural threat” was glimpsed in the “Stranger Things 4” trailer this week, and we’ve learned that the evil character is named Vecna. Like previous “Stranger Things” villains including the Demogorgon and The Mind Flayer, Vecna is named after a classic “Dungeons & Dragons” character, first appearing back in the 1970s.

As Wikipedia explains, “Vecna has been named as one of the greatest villains in Dungeons & Dragons. Originally from the World of Greyhawk campaign setting, Vecna was described as a powerful wizard who became a lich. He was eventually destroyed, and his left hand and left eye were the only parts of his body to survive. Even after he achieved godhood—being a member of the third edition’s default pantheon of D&D gods (the pantheon of Oerth)—he is still described as missing both his left eye and left hand.”

Like his D&D counterpart, the Vecna of “Stranger Things” also appears to be a desiccated corpse, and he may very well be the key to unlocking many of the mysteries of the “Stranger Things” universe. The Season 4 trailer presents Vecna as a big bad the likes of which we haven’t quite seen from the series before, designed to be the show’s own Freddy Krueger.

“You’ve broken EVERYTHING. Your suffering is almost at an end,” Vecna declares in the Season 4 trailer.

Creators Matt and Ross Duffer reveal in IGN’s trailer breakdown, “We wanted to introduce the idea right away that there is a major new threat. We’ve always wanted to do our… whatever version of… a Freddy Krueger, or a Pinhead, or a Pennywise. Because those were the monsters… the villains… supernatural villains that terrified us the most when we growing up.”

“It’s something we’ve wanted to do since Season 2, it just took us this long to get there,” the Duffer Brothers continue. “But this is something we’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”

Of course, the mention of Freddy Krueger is an interesting one here, as horror icon Robert Englund joins the “Stranger Things” cast in Season 4. He’s playing the mysterious character Victor Creel, who has been described as “a disturbed man who is imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital for a gruesome murder in the 1950s.” Creel looks to be a major player in the events of Season 4, and the first glimpse of Englund’s character in the trailer this week (seen below) shows us that he’s missing both of his eyes. Could he be connected to the villainous Vecna?

With Robert Englund starring in the new season and the new season’s big bad being based on Freddy Krueger, well, let’s just say we won’t be surprised to see the series play into that connection. “Stranger Things” has always been heavily influenced by 80s horror movies, including A Nightmare on Elm Street, so we could be in store for a full-on Elm Street homage.

In fact, the “Stranger Things 4” trailer is loaded with little winks and nods to A Nightmare on Elm Street, including the first shot below that shows Vecna looking very, very Freddy-like…