IT Trailer Breakdown

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This might be an uncouth statement, but I’ve never really understood the big deal about clowns.  I mean, we all collectively agreed that zombies and vampires are overdone, with the days of the werewolf being indisputably numbered, but for some reason clowns just keep on hanging in there as a reliable boogeyman.  

Maybe that’s because there aren’t actually that many clown horror films to see really.  There’s Killer Klowns from Outer Space, certainly, but that was more of a horror-comedy while more recent offerings like Clown or 31 seem to have flown completely under the radar. 

Honestly, I’ve never even been that on board with the idea of clowns being inherently scary.  I understand the mechanism by which they can be twisted to invoke dread but most of the time when people say they’re afraid of clowns they really just mean they’re afraid of creepy clowns and, spoilers, it’s the creepy they’re afraid of.  

All of this is part and parcel to why I’m not terribly on board with everyone’s new favorite Horror trailer for the remake of IT, the Stephen King novel whose original TV adaptation put killer clowns on the horror landscape back in 1990.  As I probably already gave away I’ve got some harsh words about both the original and this trailer for the remake but let’s watch said trailer before going forward. 

Static Thoughts - '80s Influences on Stranger Things

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Edited by Robert Beach 

The show of the summer has finally arrived. Surprisingly, it was a sleeper hit from Netflix that no one had ever heard of called Stranger Things.  Pretty much coming out of nowhere, Stranger Things won over audiences with its winning combination of small town stories, kid adventure tropes, horror-inflected sci-fi, and a smooth, creamy layer of ‘80s nostalgia so thick you could cut it with a spork.  

That last bit is what brings us here today as I maintain one of the best things about Stranger Things is being able to pick out the deliberate homages to 1980s pop culture and touchstones. Some of this comes in the form of direct shoutouts and references while others formed through a repackaged version of classic scenes from various movies of the time.  With that said, let’s look at the top 10 1980s influences on Stranger Things (and one ‘90s influence, but we’ll get to that in due course.) Needless to say, spoilers to follow.