Stranger Things is Netflix's latest original series to hit the network. From everything I've seen that has the Netflix stamp on it, I'm yet to be disappointed. With that and great reviews of this series, I was really excited to finally get into Stranger Things and check it out for myself.

Like most Netflix series, they are designed to be binged, and Stranger Things is no different. This 8 episode series plays like a movie. While it has no reflection of the quality of the show itself, I think it's a massive credit to the writers and directors to make this seamless series feel like an 8 hour movie. Unfortunately I was unable to watch it all back to back, with the longest session being the final 4 episodes. However with it only being 8 episodes, this is a series you can easily re-watch in the space of a day. And for me, this is one I'm going to watch this one a few times over.

Stranger Things is at the heart a mystery/thriller/horror series. Plot wise, when I was watching it I thought it had an Insidious feel. Without going deep into plot points, if your a fan of the Insidious franchise than you will be completely onboard with the plot line in this series. The whole time you are watching it you are trying to work out what is actually going on. I went into this series completely blind from trailers and synopsis so everything to me was a big mystery. I know at this point it may have been hard to skip all this stuff but I you can, I heavily suggest you go in as blind as you possible can.

Again without giving too much away, I thought the main cast were fantastic. I thought everyone nailed their role that all played into the final bigger picture. Everyone from Winona Ryder as the mother, David Harbour as the chef and Matthew Modine as a mystery scientist. For me though, a big credit to the child actors throughout this series, especially Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven. I thought she played the mysterious role better than anyone else in the series. What made her performance so great was that for the most part, she didn't say much, but when she did, she spoke it with a sense of naivety and unawareness that her character is portrayed as. On a side note Dustin was by far my favourite character. For the most part he was the comedic relief of all the tense sense and I thought Gaten Matarazzo handled the role perfectly.

For many people, the biggest appeal of this series is the 80s feel. Even though I was born in the 90s, watching this series heavily reminded me of the feel I got as a kid when I watched those 80s movies such as ET. From what I've heard from people who had their childhood based in the 80s, the way the child cast is portrayed as they typical 80s kids is spot on. For me personally I saw the connection between the kids in Stranger Things and those in ET. On a side note, my favourite thing they did to set the tone of the 80s was the opening credits. Everything from the font to the music felt completely 80s. I'm not sure if the opening credits was filmed on film but the way the text never say flush and the white flickers that is typical in film really set the tone of what the series would be.

Stranger Things is one of those rare series that once you sink you teeth into it, your hooked. I thought it was a great all round story that had a big sense of start, middle, end that we typically find in movies. It's really hard to pin point anything specifically that I didn't like about this series apart from not being able to watch it all in one day and not growing up in the 80s to allow me to completely relate to the nostalgia and characters of the series. I think if I grew up in the 80s this would of been a home run but because I at times struggled with that connection, it feel a bit short.

9/10