‘Stranger Things’: All the monsters we’ve seen in the series

‘Stranger Things’ is a lot of things. Above all, it’s entertaining, but that entertainment comes from a number of different places. It’s funny: almost every character has a handful of laugh moments in any given season. It’s exciting, who can resist watching the next episode as soon as the previous one ends? There’s a lot going on, and the series picks the most exciting moments to leave us begging for more.

But possibly, above all else, ‘Stranger Things’ is… well, it’s pretty creepy, if not downright terrifying. What provides those thrills, of course, comes from the supernatural element of the show. In true Stephen King fashion (the Duffer brothers are die-hard fans of the legendary author and clearly pay homage to him in various ways), the series features a roster of monsters that make our heroes’ lives hell. But what are these monsters? We break it all down below:

Neighbor (Season 4)

The latest addition to the Upside Down is Vecna. Like previous ‘Stranger Things’ villains, Vecna ​​hails from ‘Dungeons & Dragons’, and is described in game lore as an undead wizard who was once human. He is a formidable foe with godlike, reality-altering powers. He can control minds and even paralyze people. And after season 4, we also get to know the human history of him beyond the game.

In the series, Vecna, before he was Vecna, was Henry, a boy who moved to Hawkins with his family, the Creels, in the ’60s. He displayed powers from a young age and generally terrified his family and eventually I will kill them. Dr. Brenner found Henry and began working with him on his powers (he is the first child Dr. Brenner encountered, so he is tattooed with the number 1). When Dr. Brenner realized that Henry was too powerful to contain, he injected him with a chip to neutralize his powers and keep him subdued.

In Volume 1, we find out that Eleven took the chip from Henry and Henry in turn…killed everyone in the lab except Eleven and Dr. Brenner. Henry offers to take over the world with Eleven and she, horrified, decides to kill Henry with her powers. Unfortunately, she accidentally sent him to the Upside Down and opened the first portal. So all this time Henry spent time gaining powers and becoming a Vecna, waiting for the chance to take over the world.

As of the end of Season 4, the kids have yet to defeat Vecna, and we’ll have to wait for Season 5 to see how the story ends.

The Mind Flayer (Season 3)

The main villain/monster of ‘Stranger Things 3’ is the so-called Mind Flayer in the original version. Named after the D&D monster, the Mind Flayer or Mind Flayer is a monster that possesses a host and uses the host’s body as a vessel to wreak evil on it. Billy is the main vessel in this final season, and the Mind Flayer, through him, possesses a number of people (most of whom eventually turn into gooey meat), including Heather Holloway, her fellow lifeguard, Tom Holloway, the Heather’s father, the editor of The Hawkins Post, and Doris Driscoll, an elderly woman who tells Nancy about the infected rats. Oh yeah, that’s right: he also owns and melts a bunch of rats.

By melting these possessed bodies, the Mind Flayer fuses them all together into a giant six-legged monster that keeps gaining more and more mass with each body it melts. It’s pretty creepy, and really gross.

The kids attack the monster with fireworks, but the monster is finally stopped when a series of factors happen: Billy challenges the monster’s possession, distracting him from harming the (now powerless) Eleven, and Joyce and Hopper close the door to the Upside Down. . Maybe forever this time, the Mind Flayer seems to be dead.

The Shadow (Season 2)

We were first introduced to the Mind Flayer (originally known as Sombra) in Season 2, as the main antagonist/monster. Will Byers, seemingly just over the events of the first season, keeps jumping between the real world and the Upside Down, seeing a giant spider-like monster made entirely of smoke and shadow. Will is continually attacked and eventually possessed by the monster.

As Will tells everyone that he “likes it cold”, they eventually realize that the way to defeat the Mind Flayer is with heat: Joyce and Jonathan have Will tied up with heat lamps, and the Mind Flayer is forced out of Will’s body. Eleven and Hopper go down the door to the Upside Down in Hawkins and, using Eleven’s telekinetic powers, close the door, temporarily cutting off the Mind Flayer’s power.

the demogorgon

The Demogorgon was the original monster from ‘Stranger Things’ (and there were several of them), and is probably still the series’ flagship monster. This is the monster that originally took and feasted on Barb (RIP), attacked Nancy through the tree door, and tormented both Will and Eleven. It is like a demon whose face splits open revealing a million teeth, accompanied by a screeching roar. It is creepy!

At the end of the first season, one of these bad boys got totally roasted (literally) by Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve, when they fought before defeating him by setting him on fire. Eleven also defeated another by blowing it to smithereens with her powers, throwing herself into the Upside Down in the process.

However, just when we thought we were free of Demogorgons, we discovered that assumption is far too presumptuous. During the season 3 finale credits scene, we get a glimpse of a far away Russian prison, where the “American” is being held. Next we see a torture room, where, you guessed it, a Demogorgon awaits. uh oh

the demodogs

When everything seemed fine at the end of season 1, Will Byers was having dinner with Joyce and Jonathan and briefly excused himself to go to the bathroom. Instead of the usual things that are done there, we saw Will go back to the Upside Down and then cough up a strange slug-like thing in the drain. Disgusting, and also a harbinger of things to come.

Early in the next season, Dustin (a notorious science nerd) finds a slightly older version of this same slug and, thinking he has discovered a new species, takes it and names it D’artagnan. ‘D’art’, as they start calling him for short, turns out to be a mini demogorgon, or demogorgon dog, and thanks Dustin for his kindness in eating his family cat. (They are known as Demo-dogs because they walk on all fours, unlike the original Demogorgon who walks upright)

The Demo-dogs cause all kinds of trouble throughout the season, but Steve Harrington has a true hero moment when he battles three of these bad boys with his spiked baseball bat, while Lucas, Dustin, and Max look on. Unfortunately, before their defeat, these creatures brutally mutilate Bob, the very sweet man Joyce Byers was dating (and the manager of the local Radioshack). We will never forgive them for eating poor Bob.