Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

david harbour

Stranger Thingshas been gone nearly three years — theprevious seasonlaunched July 4, 2019 — so fans are being rewarded for their patience.

The fear factor has been upped considerably in these seven new episodes, sometimes to a level that’s close toAmerican Horror StoryorThe Haunting of Hill House.

The last few minutes of episode 4, for instance, will have you biting the sofa pillows: A major runs in terror across a blood-red dreamscape, dodging a terrifying new monster namedVecna. A swampy thing with deadly tapered fingers and, somewhat distractingly, the physique of a fitness instructor, this Vecna hoists his victims up in the air and breaks their limbs with a loud crunch. (So keep those sofa pillows handy!)

Such scares compensate for the fact that the plot is a bit sprawling — season 3, after all, dispersed everyone (or nearly everyone) to what seemed like moderately promising futures, probably free from having to worry about the horrors of the Upside Down.

Not so.

“This evil, it’s like a virus,” we’re told. “Each time it returns, it comes back stronger, smarter, deadlier.” In other words, it’s like theDownton Abbeymovies.

Courtesy of Netflix

Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven and Noah Schnapp as Will Byers in “Stranger Things” Season 4

In one of the show’s strongest scenes, she has to resort to throwing a punch with a roller skate in her hand.

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The first seven episodes ofStranger Thingsseason 4 drop Friday on Netflix, with episodes 8 and 9 premiering on July 1.

source: people.com