Arts & Entertainment

‘Stranger Things: The Experience’ whets fans’ appetites ahead of 4th season

By Jorge Fuentelsaz

New York, May 12 (EFE).- An immersive experience in the Big Apple is giving fans of the popular Netflix series “Stranger Things” the chance to step into its nightmare-inducing alternate dimension known as the Upside Down, which visitors enter via a narrow, crooked passageway overrun with root-like tendrils.

“Stranger Things: The Experience,” which kicked off this month and will run in the New York City borough of Brooklyn until July 31, is a way for that streaming platform to whet viewers’ appetites ahead of the May 27 premiere of the fourth season.

“The best place of the experience is definitely The Upside Down … You have to go through a rift, and it’s pretty impressive” with the “special effects and the technology that they use here,” George Anthony Agbuya, the director-general of that interactive production, told Efe.

Located at the Duggal Greenhouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the experience reconstructs the entrance and interior of the infamous National Laboratory in Hawkins, the fictional small town in the midwestern US state of Indiana where the plot of the show unfolds in the early 1980s.

Visitors are led by actors playing the role of researchers at that laboratory, where in the series investigations are carried out into paranormal phenomena and on human subjects – such as the character “Eleven” – who possess telepathic and psychokinetic abilities.

Participants will be introduced to a brand-new “Stranger Things” storyline and interact with characters such as the villainous Dr. Martin Brenner and the series’ adolescent protagonists, while also unlocking their power to influence their surroundings.

Also playing a starring role in the experience is a spine-chilling demogorgon, a humanoid predator whose head opens up like a Venus flytrap.

“I thought it was really cool. Honestly, it was nice how interactive it was and all the technology. It was really neat,” Kelsey, a 21-year-old woman who said she is a fan of the series and especially of the character “Eleven,” told Efe.

“I really liked going through the portal to the Upside Down, and the 3-D was really, really neat,” she added.

Guests who make their way through that treacherous alternate dimension continue their interactive visit in the Mix-Tape area; there, they can explore nostalgic locations from the series such as the Scoops Ahoy ice-cream parlor, where waiters serve customers in sailor costumes, and enjoy other 1980s throwbacks like photo booths, arcade games and boomboxes.

A gift shop also sells retro-style T-shirts with images of the series’ characters, demogorgon stuffed toys and vinyl copies of the series’ soundtrack.

Those interested in alcoholic beverages can find them at “The Upside,” a bar that sells $16 cocktails with names such as “Demogorgon” or “Upside Down.”

“Stranger Things: The Experience” also provides a bit of a tease for fans ahead of the launch of the series’ fourth season.

“If you take a look around inside the Mix-Tape area, we actually have some little tidbits of things to announce, so if you look over we also have Hellfire Club. We have Surfer Boy Pizza and also Rink-O-Mania, which are new elements in season four,” Agbuya said without providing further details.

Tickets start at $44 per person for “Stranger Things: The Experience,” which also will be coming to San Francisco and London in June and August, respectively. EFE

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