The Real Monster In <i>Stranger Things 2</i>

This article contains spoilers through the entirety of Stranger Things 2.

One of the most horrifying moments in Stranger Things 2 comes toward the end of the third episode. Will (Noah Schnapp) is at school, helping his friends look for D’Artagnan, a sentient blob Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) found in his trashcan. Will peeks inside a bathroom stall. The word EVIL is scrawled on the wall, as if to foreshadow what’s about to happen. D’Artagnan, hiding behind the toilet, hisses, and the sound triggers Will, shifting his reality back into the Upside Down. Seeing a dark shape manifest in the hallway, Will runs outside, but then turns to face it. The gargantuan black form invades his body, entering his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, enveloping him whole.

The scene is visually and aurally jarring. The sound effects—a combination of thunder, growling, and robotic beeping—crescendo, as Will is overpowered by the Shadow Monster, the major antagonist of It’s terrifying, but also disturbing simply becauseit’sso obvious that Will is being violated. And in the following episode, as Will returns to reality and tells Joyce (Winona Ryder) what happened, his language echoes words used by survivors of assault. At first, he pretends he can’t remember. Then, pressed, he tries to explain. “I don’t know, it came for me,” he says, crying. “And I . I tried to make it go away, but it got me, Mom. I felt it . . And .”