Netflix understands the assignment. These days, horror fans yearn for the good old days of video store rentals and watching their favorite films on crackling, grainy VHS tapes. There was just something special about the whole experience, and the streaming platform hopes to get back a little bit of that feeling.
While it’s not a literal physical release (sorry, folks!), a VHS Special Edition dropped overnight for “Stranger Things,” Netflix’s juggernaut series about a group of kids and their science fiction adventures. The Duffer Brothers-created series ended on New Year’s Eve with the final chapter of season five, which drew significant praise from Rotten Tomatoes critics for “solidifying its pop culture classic status with genuinely captivating genre fare.”
What does the VHS Special Edition feel like?
VHS Special Edition: What to Expect
With the story set entirely in the 1980s, it only makes sense for “Stranger Things” to get a VHS visual overhaul. The VHS Special Edition features only the first season of the show, which originally aired in 2016.
Eight episodes now have “a video store vibe that’s glitchy, grainy and gloriously vintage — just like you’d have rented it in 1983,” reads the official landing page synopsis. Qualities include 4:3 presentation of episodes, the gloriously fuzzy tracking lines and the classic warped coloring.
Netflix shared the reveal on Instagram, with the caption, “A little treat from Family Video.”
At the conclusion of the show, Variety revealed that season five drew $105.7 million viewers for the entire season. “Stranger Things” became Netflix’s ninth most popular English-language series of all time so far.
Netflix Taps Into ’80s and ’90s Nostalgia
This isn’t the first time Netflix has released special versions of its original horror titles. Following the “Fear Street” trilogy release in 2021, the platform issued physical vinyl of the three films’ soundtracks. The expansive musical collection came on different colored vinyl records from Waxwork Records, in partnership with Netflix, Milan Records and Sony Music.
The albums features music composed by Marco Beltrami (“Scream,” “A Quiet Place”), Marcus Trumpp (“Carrie,” “The Thing”), Brandon Roberts (“Clown in a Cornfield,” “Pet Sematary: Bloodlines”) and Anna Drubich (“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” “Werewolves Within”).
Beltrami notes that trilogy director Leigh Janiak urged the creative team to explore the three time periods of the film. With “Fear Street: 1994,” the composer walked down memory lane back to his “Scream” days for the music, considering the entry is heavily inspired by its predecessor. “I was able to revisit the scores that gave me my start in this business,” he said in a statement to Bloody Disgusting.
“Fear Street: 1978” gave Beltrami the chance to “channel the iconic scores of Jerry Goldsmith and his use of woodwinds and percussion in the orchestra.” Goldsmith’s catalog includes scores for “The Omen,” “Poltergeist,” “Basic Instinct,” “Planet of the Apes” and “Alien.”
Then, Beltrami used an ensemble of strings, percussion, choir and electronics for the last film, “Fear Street: 1666.” “Marcus, Brandon, Anna and I wrote over four hours of music, all of it inspired by our amazingly talented director,” he added.
