A Strange Halloween

Fall 2019 (Florida Coast Magazine) – It’s that time of year again when the kids are getting back into the swing of school, the humidity is starting to fade, and parents are anxiously waiting for the abundance of candy to soon be filling their kid’s “Trick or Treat” bags. Halloween is a nightmare for some, and it is the best time of year for others. Love it or hate it, why not join in the festivities and hold a party the neighbors will talk about for years to come. We are not talking your run-of-the mill ghostly, clown-filled house party here, but something just a little “stranger!”

Like many, we are obsessed with the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, so we hunted down the set designer, Rob Nagy and the set decorator Cara Price, to pick their creative brains for ideas on how to set the scene for a perfect Stranger Things house party. If never having had the pleasure of watching the show, there are plenty of ideas here to inspire an 80’s themed party.

Winning numerous awards and receiving 31 Emmy award nominations, the science fiction/horror series Stranger Things was created by the Duffer brothers and airs on Netflix, where it has grown to be one of the biggest TV series sensations of recent times. Set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana during the 1980s, the series’ atmosphere and appeal transports viewers back to a time where kids would have the freedom to play outside for hours on end, go on adventures, and get into all sorts of trouble. Think E.T. meets The Goonies, fused with an 80s supernatural movie would accurately describe the feel of this historically-aesthetic, well-written, homage-to-the-80s TV show.

The first season is based around the vanishing of a young boy (Will) after a supernatural occurrence around the town, involving the arrival of a girl with extraordinary powers. The second season focuses on the characters trying to return to a normal life after the events of the first season, and the third season sees a return of the “unusual.” Filming for season four will commence in October, 2019.

Chatting with Rob Nagy, it soon becomes obvious he is articulate, creative, and he has an immense passion for all things in set design. Born in Toronto, Canada, Rob moved to the U.S. to attend high school. For his undergraduate degree, he went to the University of Chicago, where he studied liberal arts along with a major in biology. He then took a year off to focus on architecture and went on to achieve a master’s degree in architecture from Georgia Tech.

He worked as an architect in both Georgia and New York until 2008. Rob recalls, “The crash happened and around 2013, I decided to move back to Atlanta where my wife and I both have family.”

When he moved back to Atlanta, he took a job as an art production assistant on a feature film named Selma. He states, “It’s a little bit of luck and who you know. After Selma I worked on another show and I was good friends with the location coordinator. After that show ended, he reached out to me and said, ‘We are doing this Netflix show, are you interested?’ I said, ‘Sure, pass my information on.’ Next thing you know, I get an email from the art director saying ‘We would like you on board.’”

Roby Nagy works with an artistic director and head of construction to develop the main sets from ideas to reality. Cara Price’s job as the set decorator involves interpreting the director, art director, and set designer’s visions to tell a sub-story through the background props and décor. They also work with the prop master and production buyers to ensure there is continuity throughout the television show.

Throwing a Stranger Things Halloween Party

When planning a set design or even a party, the ultimate goal is transforming a space into something the director, or in this case, the party planner has in mind. If having the luxury of working with a party planner, they will do the bulk of the research. However, if all the planning and research is done by the host, Cara and Rob suggest following these simple steps.

RESEARCH THE TOPIC  Holding a Stranger Things party means watching the series and picking out key scenes that can easily be mirrored. Cara and Rob recommend decorating using the following scenes as inspiration:

• The Byers house in season 1
• The Upside Down
• The Lab in season 1
• Hawkins pool in season 3
• Season 3’s Scoops Ahoy (ice cream parlor) in the Starcourt Mall

THEME  Stranger Things is based in the 80s, so there is plenty of inspiration to be found through classic movies like E.T., The Goonies, Risky Business, Karate Kid, and Poltergeist, which were just a few of the movies which influenced the Duffer Brothers. Referring back to old photos, memorabilia, and music (especially the first music videos on MTV) are also great reference points with websites like www.inthe80s.com giving a great insight into 80s slang, music, clothes, and food.

FOOD  Food is always the key to any successful party. Many 80s classic brands appeared in Stranger Things, some of which include Eggo Waffles, Pringles, and Nilla Wafers. That period of time took junk food to an entirely new level with powerful branding, vibrant colors, and the convenience of the microwave introducing generation X to a variety of new tastes. Nowadays, many shy away from such sugar, salt, and dye-infested food, but for this party why not use the branding as props with the odd treat thrown in. To find original 80s recipes, look through any old recipe book or online search, such as frugalsos.com.

MUSIC  The music from this era generally had a positive vibe even though the decade was full of turmoil. Every week there was relief from horrors with new and exciting songs hitting the charts. The birth of MTV revolutionized music, and for the first time the real pop video’s hit people’s TV sets. Stranger Things uses a mixture of their own soundtrack (by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein) inspired by an 80s sound with famous tracks from the 80s, such as “Hazy Shade of Winter” from The Bangles, “Heroes” by Peter Gabriel, “Waiting for a Girl Like You” by Foreigner.

To add the perfect atmosphere download the Stranger Things soundtrack from www.what-song.com or www.spotify.com or make up a favorite list of 80s hits.

INVITATIONS  To set the theme and expectations for an upcoming Stranger Things party, it is imperative to get the invitation right. Etsy has Stranger Things invitations already designed for your convenience. Make sure to put the time, place and any requirements, for example, “Please come in eighties inspired clothing!”

Let’s Decorate

Once the invitations have been sent out and the food has been ordered, it’s time to decorate Stranger Things style. Take the time to deck out the different rooms of the house with the following details, and you’ll be sure to throw a Halloween party your friends and family won’t soon forget!

LIVING ROOM

Transform the main living room into the Byers house. The Byers are one of the main families in the show. Mother Joyce lives with her two sons, Jonathan and Will in a small house in the country. Joyce works at the local general store in Hawkins and does the best she can to provide for her sons. They don’t have much but they do have one another.

What You Will Need:

• Lots and lots of colored Christmas lights. The set required lights to be criss crossed all over the main living space of the Byers home. These lights were used by Will’s Mother to communicate with him whilst he was stuck in the Upside Down. When putting up the lights make an X shape and be sure to use the required extensions etc. Do not over-stress a single plug socket.
• Banner – Joyce Byers (Will’s Mother) also drew big black letters all over her living room wall in a desperate attempt to communicate with her son (known by the directors as the Ouija wall, pictured above). Don’t ruin the living room wall, but instead order a sign with the alphabet in big capital letters from www.fastsigns.com in Palm Beach Gardens or if doing on a budget cut out the alphabet from black construction paper and arrange on the living room wall.
• Place a sofa (brown if possible) just beneath the lettering and visit consignment stores to try and find a knitted throw to place over the sofa. Dot a couple of side tables on either side of the sofa and on these tables place lamps (lamps with patterns are very eighties and consignment stores are also a perfect source to find such items).
• Place a coffee table in front of the sofa with a couple of magazines from the 80s. eBay is the perfect place to find these.

SPARE ROOM

If lucky enough to have a spare room on the ground floor (i.e. an office or dining room), transform it into the scary world of the Upside Down. Mike, another central character on the show describes the Upside Down as “a dimension that is a dark reflection, or echo, of our world. It is a place of decay and death, a plane out of phase, a place of monsters.” This is the room to go all out scary. A place where the nightmares become reality.

What You Will Need:

• Purple or orange light bulbs – change the light bulbs using a darker color. Immediately giving an eerie feeling to the space.
• Smoke/fog machine – these can be purchased from any Halloween store, super store or on amazon. This will give the misty appearance of the Upside Down. Try and aim along the floor so the mist floats across the room.
• Make a large tree out or twisting brown construction paper and sticking it together. The large tree was the portal to the ‘Upside Down’. To get inspiration on how to make a large tree that will be stuck to the wall visit www.ehow.com
• Rip up white cheesecloth and randomly drape around the room. This can be purchased from all superstores and Halloween stores in the Fall.
• Play creepy Stranger Things background music “Walking Through the Upside Down” by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein.

KITCHEN

Transform the kitchen into an ice cream parlor, Scoops Ahoy, which appears at the Starcourt Mall in season 3. The character Steve, gets a job in the new Starcourt mall at Scoops Ahoy. He provides his friends with free ice-cream and lets them sneak through the back of the parlor so they can watch free movies at the attached cinema. The shopping mall was an 80s invention, featuring big new brands and thus causing the death of the local mom-and-pop shops. This is the only bubblegum happy place in the Strange Halloween set up. Go to town with bright happy colors and happy 80s pop music.

What You Will Need:

• Pastel Blue and white wide striped paper to hang on a kitchen wall. If this is difficult to find anything bright, even a pink bed sheet would work.
• Make a Scoops Ahoy 80s-looking sign to stick on the kitchen door
• Decorate everything in baby blue and baby pink colors i.e. ice cream bowls, plates, and spoons and dot around anything with a nautical theme i.e. steering wheel of a ship
• Ice-cream—Baskin Robbins is currently selling Stranger Things inspired flavors, including a Demogorgon Sundae, Upside Down Sundae, Elevenade Freeze, and Byers’ House Lights Polar Pizza Ice Cream treat, Eleven’s Heaven, Upside Down Pralines, and USS Butterscotch Quarts.
• Scoops Ahoy costumes are available online. The Florida Coast team loves character Steve’s Scoops Ahoy costume from www.spirithalloween.com

Backyard

A local farmer reported that his pumpkin patch had been poisoned by a neighboring farmer so the Hawkins Police department went to investigate. Jim Hopper, the sheriff of the town, suspects something a little stranger is going on. To create the look of the farm, obtain a couple of hay bales for seating party guests and a dozen or so pumpkins to dot around the lawn. Spray paint the odd pumpkin top black so they appear rotten.

Scatter flash lights around on hay bales and if you have access to a BMX or 80s style bike leave on the ground or resting against the wall of the house. An 80s-style baseball cap can be left on a hay bail.

What You Will Need:

A dozen or more pumpkins, hay bales, black spray paint, flash lights, baseball cap (retro 80s colors of blue, white, red), BMX or Chopper bike.

Pool

The Hawkins community pool has a couple of major scenes in season 3, including the abduction of a lifeguard by the character Billy who has been possessed by a creature from the Upside Down. Although there are bright colors through items like beach balls, inflatables, and neon swimwear, there is still something very creepy about this pool.

What You Will Need:

A swimming pool, a dozen or beach balls beach balls to dot around the pool, inflatables, stool or if possible a lifeguard chair, Boombox stereo (batteries only), umbrella, poolside lounge chairs, kiddie pool full of ice/drinks. Bonus: Target and H&M released Hawkins Pool inspired clothing.