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Stranger Things season 2 arrives October 27. Watch the first trailer now.

It looks like Close Encounters of the Third Kind by way of H.P. Lovecraft.

Emily St. James was a senior correspondent for Vox, covering American identities. Before she joined Vox in 2014, she was the first TV editor of the A.V. Club.

Netflix is officially making a bid to take over your Halloween weekend, as it announced today that the second season of Stranger Things will premiere October 27.

Netflix unveiled its first look at Stranger Things season two during the Super Bowl, and if you were wondering where the show will be going, the answer seems clear: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, by way of H.P. Lovecraft.

That’s what the most memorable shot of the ad suggests, at least, as one of the show’s central quintet of kids looks out of his front door to see some sort of giant, tentacled thing up in the sky, framed by horrible red light. The world is turning upside down, the ad says, and yeah, we’d say it looks like things are getting pretty intense.

Stranger Things
Look! Alien monsters from beyond this dimension!
Netflix

But that’s not all! Also, the kids are dressing up as the Ghostbusters, everybody’s enjoying commercials for Eggos, and Will (who disappeared into the Upside Down last season) is freaking out.

No sign, just yet, of Eleven, the superpowered girl (played by Millie Bobby Brown) who became season one’s breakout character before disappearing into the void with the show’s main monster, the Demogorgon, but c’mon. You know she’ll be back.

There’s also no real sign of Winona Ryder or David Harbour as the show’s main adult characters, but there’s plenty of footage of the mysterious science facilities on the outskirts of town, where portals to other worlds are opened up.

If you want to watch the multiple award-winning first season of Stranger Things, get thee to Netflix. Everybody who’s already been to the Upside Down, however, will just have to wait until October 27 for more.


Watch: How Stranger Things got its retro title sequence

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