"Stranger Things" is quite an anomaly in today's overly saturated market of media crap and thin drama - and a good one. The 80s are for children what the early 60s were for young men, the "decade du jour" of all things good and valuable: friendship, character building, fantasy, adventure, learning the facts and pains of life without overprotective parents and eyes constantly gazing at iPhones. It was also the high point of the second golden age of cinema, when George Lucas and Spielberg were kings and the highly emotional rollercoasters fun films were the norm - and special effects were meant to dazzle and tell a fantastic story, and not distract us.

It's a particular sentiment of comprehensible nostalgia that has been attempted to be "captured" and "reproduced" before by J.J. Abrahams: "Super 8" comes to mind again and again when seeing "Stranger Things". It's like watching a craftsman building a vintage car from scratch: it's the same thing, and at the same time, it is most certainly not. All of the elements are there, complete with slowly fading credits with film scratch marks, but it's impossible to avoid seeing the modern touches of editing, lightning, CGI, and the eventual winks to the audience that this is a period piece (which is particularly painful for those, including myself, who have lived in that era).

"Stranger Things" borrows from it all: apart from the obvious "Super 8", there's bits and pieces of "ET", "The Thing", "The Goonies", "Fire Starter", "Akira", and even some nuances of "Neon Genesis Evangelion's" Rei Ayanami on Eleven's speech and behavior. Sometimes it fails, being a "paint by the numbers" replication of those formulas, leaving plot holes and thin characterizations behind like a trail of bread crumbs leading you to what media produces today for the millennial audience unaccustomed with plot and emotion. On some times, it succeeds going beyond that level and portraying an engaging story that invites you to look beyond the clichés and enjoy this series for what it is.

All in all, "Stranger Things" can be truly recommended, is a guilt pleasure of the most extraordinary kind, and rarely you will find a moment where, albeit flaws, you are not enjoying it.