John Carpenter’s Halloween…
The latter two examples are what the brothers draw from specifically (those and, oddly enough, “Halloween”/John Carpenter’s expansive early oeuvre) in creating an ’80s set homage to the decade, complete with bad haircuts, an electronic synth-driven score and Reagan-era paranoia.
It's not by accident that by minute five of the show you've already caught homages to E.T., Poltergeist, and Halloween.
From the opening minutes of Stranger Things, it’s obvious that creators Matt and Ross Duffer want to put you in mind of ET, Halloween, A Nightmare On Elm Street and, most of all, Stephen King’s It.
In short, Stranger Things is sort of like if E.T. took a left turn into It, with a stop along the way to pick up a bit of the small-town terror of Halloween.
There are lens flares, dolly zooms, and Spielberg Faces galore, and the score is an explicit nod to Carpenter’s Halloween music.