Netflix's Stranger Things season 4 will play on the classic haunted house trope, and it's possible this mystery location - the Creel house - will be the key to the Upside-Down. Netflix has finally released the full trailer for Stranger Things season 4, offering tantalizing glimpses of a story that seems to be on a far greater scale than anything seen before. It seems war is coming, a war between humanity and the creatures of the Upside-Down, and the true force behind this mysterious dimension is, at last, emerging from the shadows - a creature known only as Vecna.
The Upside-Down has threatened Hawkins for years now. At first glance, the Stranger Things season 4 trailer indicates the Upside-Down will finally take over Hawkins, with a glimpse of the Gate reopening and numerous shots of all the kids in the Upside-Down. The monstrous Vecna claims the heroes have finally lost, and in Stranger Things that can only mean an apocalypse. Vecna is named after a monster from Dungeons & Dragons - appropriately enough - and it's both a wizard and a king, suggesting it is the ultimate power from the twisted dimension threatening to invade the Earth in the first three Stranger Things seasons.
But, critically, the Stranger Things season 4 trailer avoids dealing with one major plot point; a haunted house that will be at the center of the story. It's entirely possible Netflix is playing a Marvel trick here, with the streaming service releasing a trailer that conceals as much as it reveals. The mysterious Stranger Things Creel house may well be a portal to the Upside-Down - and if that's the case, then Vecna has been influencing Hawkins for decades.
Stranger Things Season 4's Creel House Explained
Every season of Stranger Things has drawn on a different horror genre, and so frankly, it's about time the show got its own haunted house. An earlier Stranger Things season 4 teaser trailer, released as part of Netflix's TUDUM event, told the story of the Creel house, which is tied to a tragedy dating back to the 1950s. This teaser trailer showed Victor Creel and his family moving into their new home in Hawkins and intending to settle down - only to quickly learn they'd stumbled straight into a horror film. Subsequent bloody clips from the trailer (such as a mutilated rabbit left outside the Creel home) all built towards a horrific climax, with Victor Creel (Robert Englund) murdering his children and, potentially, his wife. Victor then claimed to have been under the influence of a demon of some kind and, as a result, was sentenced to live out the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital.
Stranger Things aficionados will, of course, recognize all the signs of the Upside-Down. Back in Stranger Things season 1, the lights flickered whenever the Demogorgon was near in the Upside-Down, meaning these mysterious events could well indicate the Creel house is a place where the fabric of reality is unusually thin. The rabbit's corpse placed on the Creel doorstep in the teaser trailer is even more ominous because it looked as though it had been torn apart by a Demogorgon. Yet the most terrifying aspect of the Stranger Things teaser trailer is Victor Creel's account, which suggests he fell under the influence of a creature from the Upside-Down - perhaps the Mind-Flayer, which can possess hosts, or perhaps even Vecna.
The Creel House's Haunting Predates Eleven's Gates
This interpretation of the Stranger Things teaser trailer seems natural; after all, with the phenomena shown around the Creel house all feeling very familiar. However, the core problem is that Victor Creel's murders took place in the 1950s, and until now, viewers believed the first portals to the Upside-Down were created by Eleven 30 years later, in 1983. The only logical explanation, then, is that viewers have been misled about the origin of Stranger Things' Upside-Down all this time; and that there have always been places in Hawkins where the fabric of reality was fragile, where Demogorgons, Mind-Flayers, and worse could break through. Victor Creel and his family moved into one such place - and it's likely the opening of the portal is somehow linked to the eerie grandfather clock that has been such a prominent part of Stranger Things season 4's marketing.
This would allow a greater understanding of many of the strangest scenes in the Stranger Things season 4 trailer. The Hawkins kids, for example, somehow stumble upon this portal to the Upside-Down, presumably reopening it and allowing Vecna to begin to enter this dimension. For as-yet-unknown reasons, they then decide to use the portal to enter the Upside-Down in a scene interspersed with dialogue in the Creel house as they say they will see one another "on the other side" before the trailer cuts to shots of the group cycling through the Upside-Down.
The Creel House As A Gate Rewrites Stranger Things' Lore
Should this theory be true, it fundamentally rewrites Stranger Things' central arc. Until now, it was believed Eleven was indirectly responsible for everything that had happened at Hawkins as she was the one who tore open the first Gate to the Upside-Down. Indeed, Stranger Things season 3 seemed to suggest she had done permanent damage to the barriers between the dimensions around Hawkins because the Russians could only open an Upside-Down Gate in that vicinity. But if Hawkins was already vulnerable to incursions from the Upside-Down due to this pre-existing portal, then none of this can even be indirectly blamed on Eleven, as the problem did not lie in Eleven's powers but rather in the place where she was using them.
If this is the case, it's surely not a coincidence that Dr. Brenner established his lab at Hawkins and began conducting just the kind of experiments that could allow Eleven to access the Upside-Down and unwittingly create a Gate. The most likely explanation is that there have been other strange events throughout Hawkins' history, explaining the comment in the Stranger Things season 4 trailer that the town has a reputation for being "cursed". In this way, Dr. Brenner either joined the dots and figured this was the perfect place to run his experiments or figured any weirdness associated with the number kids he was experimenting on at Hawkins Lab would be put down to the town's curse. The latter possibility would make the most sense, given Dr. Brenner seemed rather surprised when the Gate opened and didn't appear to have any understanding of the Upside-Down. Still, given he's expected to return in Stranger Things season 4, he may well have his chance to explain his decisions at last.