Stranger Things showrunners the Duffer Brothers have shared details about Robert Englund's new character following the debut of the season 4 trailer. Unlike previous Stranger Things seasons, season 4 of Netflix's sci-fi horror drama series will be divided into two parts and released separately. Stranger Things season 4, part 1 will debut on May 27, followed by part 2 on July 1, 2022.
In Stranger Things season 4, the series looks to expand to a scale unlike anything seen in prior seasons. While seasons 1 to 3 centred on Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), and Eleven/Jane Hopper's (Millie Bobby Brown) group of friends, the cast has not only grown, but now been divided across the world. Lucas, Mike, and Dustin stayed in Hawkins, but Eleven and the Byers family moved to California following the Stranger Things season 3 finale, all the while David Harbour's Jim Hopper remains a prisoner in Russia. With the cast divided and new threats of the Upside Down rising in the shadows, Stranger Things season 4 will see plenty of new faces join the cast, including one portrayed by a horror movie icon: A Nightmare on Elm Street star Robert Englund.
Following the release of the Stranger Things season 4 trailer, the Duffer Brothers sat down with IGN to breakdown and discuss some of the more intriguing hints and characters introduced in the trailer. The showrunners briefly touched upon Victor Creel, the scarred bearded man surrounded by darkness portrayed by Englund, describing him as a "pivotal" character in the upcoming series. While the Duffers avoided sharing too many details that could spoil Englund's role, they did reveal that the veteran horror actor actually approached them to be involved, before hinting that the season is heavily inspired by Englund's nightmarish Elm Street slasher series. Check out Mark Duffer's comments below.
“The fact that he came to us in a season that’s so deeply inspired by the Nightmare series and by his performance especially in those movies, it felt like fate, it felt like, ‘okay, this is meant to be.’"
Englund was cast in Stranger Things season 4 in November 2020, when a brief description of his sinister figure was teased. In a tweet announcing Englund's casting, the Stranger Things Twitter account revealed that Englund's Victor Creel is a disturbed man who was imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital following a gruesome murder in the 1950s. In a recent interview last month, Englund revealed how many episodes he will appear in during the upcoming Stranger Things season 4, after touching upon the difficulties production faced throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it lengthened production time. The actor revealed that he will appear in a single episode of season 4, but looks forward to seeing it as a fan of the series himself.
With episodes an hour in length and a plot with a scale comparable to Game of Thrones, Stranger Things season 4 may prove to be the show's most ambitious installment yet. What's more, Englund's appearance is sure to capture the interest and imagination of many keen viewers. While the series has been a love-letter to 1980s media and pop culture, the inclusion of Englund in a role described as "pivotal" is more than appropriate, as the current season has been described as inspired by haunted house/supernatural horror like A Nightmare on Elm Street or The Shining. Englund's burned haunter of dreams, Freddy Kruger, is one of horror's most iconic figures, so having the actor play a key character that potentially pays homage to, or perhaps even subverts, that role in Stranger Things season 4 would be a truly fitting use of the horror icon.
Source: IGN