As you scream “Goonies never say die,” look for Willy’s treasure, the one-eyed. ET. Imagine that with a pet like that next to you, through the sky above your bike. Or, as if you were the protagonist of Stand by me, try to unravel the mystery of a dead person. If you're between 25 and 40 years old, you've probably dreamed a lot of times that you were inside those wonderful worlds. In the 1980s, directors like Reiner, Spielberg, Zemeckis or Donner gave us a magic movie. Merging humor and fear, they gave us the opportunity to see family stories, friendly stories and above all movies that reflected the jump to age, and all those adventures were forever stuck in the heart and brain of an entire generation. Brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, children of that time, decided that it was necessary to bring to the small screen the essence that had to be recovered and this 2016 have given us the Stranger Things series by the hand of the digital platform Netflix.

It has undoubtedly become a summer series. It had been announced for a long time, but they have taken a surprise all over the world. It has managed to ignite social networks and has become one of the most important phenomena of the year. To see this reference salad of the 1980s, they have come to organize eight-hour marathons and various events.

And what was the magic key that the Duffer brothers have managed to tread? Just looking at the poster of the series – a great tribute to the cartoonist Drew Struzan – they have offered us the opportunity to travel to this wonderful decade in our particular Delorean. Continuous resurrection of sensations, perfect staging, excellent characterizations and interpretations – except Wynona Rider, I think it is exaggerated and exaggerated – and tiny doses of fear perfectly interspersed. Combining humor, science fiction, suspense, love and action in such a balanced way is not easy.

Boys and girls play with the mythical game Dungeons & Dragons. They have the posters of Evil dead, Jaws and The Thing. He-man dolls, watches and calculators Casio, Star Wars, Marvel… and what to say about everything that happens with the song Should I stay or should I go from The Clash. Many references can be found over eight episodes, but don’t think they’ve just been left in tools and upheavals, as in aspects such as script, photography, soundtrack or montage they have also taken into account films and directors. In the first chapter, for example, when presenting the characters, you cannot avoid seeing connections with The Goonies. Poltergeist, Alien and The Frighteners are also everywhere. The notable influence of directors such as Cronenberg, Guillermo del Toro, Carpenter or Peter Jackson on all corners. But the influence of another director blooms stronger when neighborhoods very close to nature appear -- he knows them, he's seen them in many movies -- middle-class families, who suddenly face a fantastic fact and use innocence as a survival tool, called Steven Spielberg, who flies over our heads. ET. Continuous links with the wonderful: in this case, the government, instead of chasing an alien, will chase a young woman with special powers; to highlight the flashlights and bicycles that can be seen in the scenes of persecution; and the moment when it uses the same plane of the movie Jaws, in which the typewriter appears, is noteworthy.

Another of the essential columns of the series, Stephen King, is thus called the search for literary references. If we look at the Drew Struzan style poster and travel directly to the production company Amblin, the retrograde typography used will guide us to the author's books. The space where the group of boys and girls ceases to be boys when faced with elements outside nature is the “King field”. The series makes it clear that childhood friends are important from the very beginning, for this we only have to look at the section The body: it is the same title of a writer’s story and years later it became Stand by me – a clear gesture when the children of the series circulate on the railroad. But if we say that in a small town kids fight monsters, It can be the most direct link. Or as in Salem’s Lot, children who look lost at night, surrounded by a frightening atmosphere. And of course, Eleven has “powers” similar to the character of the film Carrie.

Many gestures and cultural ties, yes, but do not think that they are the only support of this production. Compared to all the nostalgia exercises that have been released so far, the greatest skill of Stranger Things is that it has not calmed everything down and, above all, that it has not filled all that sugar atmosphere. In other words, the innocence surrounded by nostalgia stems from the darkness and not from a naive origin. But above all, it's a series made with a lot of affection. I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece, much less, but it's the series that we've enjoyed the most this summer.

Yeah, if you don't remember all the conversations of Indiana Jones, if there's no Ghostbusters in your house, if you don't melancholy remember the old VHS you had on your bookshelf, if you listen to the E.T. soundtrack. You don't get goosebumps, if you don't think it boring to live adventures on your bike or if you haven't built the casets in the middle of the forest; To live this new work of the Duffer brothers with passion or indifference, as it's directly proportional to the year you were born or educated. In my case, as it was in 1984, I say clearly: Long live Stranger things and long live the 1980s!