Drama
Sullivan’s Crossing
Based on a series from Virgin River’s author, this Canadian camp has less content than most shows, but some elements may make you a little cross.
The chamber of commerce for Hawkins, Indiana, has its work cut out for it.
Just how does one market a quiet, seemingly boring little hamlet that also hosts a gateway to the infernal, murder-happy, nethermost regions of the planet? “Come to Hawkins!” the slogan might go. “You might survive!” Or, “Eat here! Everything else does!”
But if you happen to live in Hawkins—and if you happen to be part of a subset of smart, precocious middle schoolers—you get used to it. You get so used to it, in fact, that you’ll keep a whole batch of adventures that you kinda-sorta forget to tell to your Netflix audience.
Until now.
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 takes place between the live-action Stranger Things Season 2 (when Eleven goes on a road trip and the crew faces the Mind Flayer) and Season 3 (when the squad has a climactic showdown at Starcourt Mall).
Mike, El and the gang are all still kids, and most of them are thrilled to have a little downtime since El sealed the gate to the Upside Down. But downtime in 1980s Hawkins is about as rare as a 1980s low-fat donut.
While the Upside Down is still sealed good and tight, not all of its native creatures are on the right side of that seal. Green, glowing, spore-like things have been turning into a variety of eclectic monsters: toothy snow sharks, vicious zombie pumpkins, vines that have clearly seen way too many Alien movies.
Naturally, it’s up to the township’s children to take on the entire burden themselves, with the gang launching their very own detective agency—the Hawkins Investigators Club—to find leads, track down monsters and make sure that the chamber of commerce’s job isn’t more difficult than it needs to be.
And they have a new helpmate, too.
Nikki Baxter—daughter of Hawkins Middle School’s new substitute science teacher, Mrs. Baxter—was drawn into the town’s supernatural issues against her will, when a toothy monster nearly gobbled her up while she herself was gobbling down pizza. She’s an outsider (of course) with a pink mohawk, massive biceps and a talent for building things. Nikki seems like the perfect pal for this plucky pack of precocious progeny.
We won’t speculate why she never showed up in Season 3.
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 has been described by Netflix as “entry level” Stranger Things. It’s more family friendly, the streaming service insists, and its (self-branded) TV-PG rating will certainly assuage parents into thinking it just might be suitable for just about everyone.
Ah, but much like we said about Hawkins, looks can be deceiving.
Certainly, Tales From ’85 is brighter and funnier than its source material. But given the level of carnage and cursing found in Netflix’s seminal show, that’s hardly reason to get too excited.
The monsters here can still be quite scary, and all of them want to, presumably, kill and/or eat the people they chase. (All those fangs they sport aren’t just for decoration, after all.) Moreover, they succeed in whisking off many Hawkins residents. Those poor souls shout and scream and then get taken off-camera. Are they alive? Dead? Both? In Stranger Things, you never know.
And even though most of these victims are missed in Hawkins about as much as we’d miss a housefly, that itself feels like a condemnation. Maybe the snowplow guy was a bit of a jerk to the gang, but to let him vanish with barely a thought (other than, maybe, “Hey, what’re we gonna do with this snowplow?”) feels callous, even for Stranger Things.
But the language is far cleaner than the original show (outside quite a bit of name-calling), and clashes with monsters are leavened with plenty of humor. For folks who love their Stranger Things but appreciate a bit of cartoonish levity Tales From ’85 might be a worthy option.
But family friendly? Hardly. It may not contain a Demogorgon. But those zombie pumpkins can still bite.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
A creature skitters through a snowy forest, followed closely by a guy in a hazmat suit with a flamethrower. The hazmat guy successfully torches the small monster, which vaporizes in a haze of green flecks. But when one of those flecks touches the ground, it takes root and turns into a vine—which soon nabs a school bully and infects him, too. Soon thereafter, another monster makes an appearance: a creature that slides beneath Hawkins’ bounty of snow like a shark.
That shark-like beast nabs at least two people, dragging them under the snow and away. Both victims scream and holler, but to no avail. They do not return. The critter drags Dustin around, too, before getting forced to let go: The gang decides to try to catch the monster using Dustin as bait, but the thing decides to go after Nikki, the new kid, instead.
Dustin gets thwacked into brick walls and the sides of cars as he’s dragged, and one of his friends accidentally hits him on the head with something. (He was aiming for the monster.) Characters fight the monster. Vines grab and clamp onto someone’s leg. A Demogorgon-like head latches onto a human face.
Bullies chase Dustin around. Mike worries that El’s father, Hopper, will “literally kill” him if anything happens to El. Kids get into a snowball fight. Bullies threaten Will, another member of the crew, with either a “fat lip or black eye.” (He’s repeatedly called “Zombie Boy” because of his adventures during the live-action Stranger Things.)
A substitute teacher references evolution. The kids’ regular science teacher announces he’s going on sabbatical. “You mean he’s going to become a priest?” Lucas asks. El levitates a snowplow with her powers, saving a couple of people in the process. Dustin shorts a convenience-store manager—and not, apparently for the first time. After being dumped in the snow, he frets about getting “snow in my crack.”
Hopper bites into a jelly donut, which dribbles jelly onto his shirt. “Aw, shirt,” he says. We do hear someone say “h—,” and characters engage in quite a bit of name-calling.
Even though the portal to and from the Upside Down is still safely closed, the gang realizes that something’s not right, and they prepare to fix it. First, they bring the new girl, Nikki, into their confidence. Next, they launch their own investigative club, asking people to write out their pleas for help and news tips and put them inside makeshift collection boxes all over town. While most of Hawkins uses the boxes as trash receptacles, the kids do get a couple of leads. One takes Lucas and Max (members of the Stranger Things crew) to a pumpkin patch—which leads to a patch of trouble.
The pumpkins come alive and sport some incredibly nasty tooth-filled mouths. They attack Lucas, Max and others. A harvester chops up these vegetable adversaries fairly efficiently, but some of the farm’s residents mention that these pumpkins were just the leftovers: The best pumpkins were used for the winter festival’s pie-eating contest. We see a pie come to life and sprout tentacles down someone’s throat.
We see the snow shark from the previous episode. The creature eventually gets torn open, revealing someone inside. (The human and the monster were apparently one and the same.) It’s a violent, grotesque scene. Monster goo splashes across windows.
El manipulates a carnival game to win a prize. By way of introduction, Nikki tells the crew, “I’m a Capricorn, I like Milk Duds, and I know how to burp all the state capitals.” She walks through the festival with Will, noting how much of an outsider she is—and encouraging Will to not let the folks who call him “Zombie Boy” bother him. “Dude, you fought monsters!” she tells him. “When you’re that much of a rock star, who cares what losers think?” The gang breaks into a governmental laboratory. Someone retches. Someone says “crap,” and Nikki uses the f-word stand-in “frickin’.”
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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