Blood is Thicker -- Families in Horror

The year is coming to an end, and you all know what that means: the days are growing shorter, the nights are filled with twinkle lights, and every radio station plays songs that involve more bells than usual. Yes, it's the holiday season, the magical time of year from November to New Years when we gather together to endure the company of our families. If you're fortunate enough to be apart of a family that is just as happy and adorable as your Christmas cards, then bully for you, it's another year of wonderful memories to be shared. But for many of us, the pilgrimage to Grandma's house is filled with misery and dread.

Not to brag, but nearly every gathering among my extended family has been punctuated with a memorable bit of unpleasantness--from the Christmas when a great aunt sized up my perfect cousins' accomplishments against my own for everyone to hear, to the Thanksgiving when my mother's sister took too many Quaaludes and passed out in her mashed potatoes at the dinner table (bonus points for the Easter that my mother-in-law told me, in grave detail, all the ways in which her pets had passed away over the years--here's a hint, none of them were from old age).

For as traumatizing as it can be to actually live in a fucked up family, there is something compelling about seeing them on film. Whether it's wacky comedies or Oscar-bait drama, genetically-shared dysfunction lends itself to all the best parts of a great movie: an ensemble of quirky characters, long-stemming grudges and deeply-held alliances, dark secrets revealed, and more than a few painfully relatable moments. When translated to horror, the family dynamic is transformed into something entirely new and even more fascinating. It introduces the idea that evil can be ingrained, instructed, and even nurtured.

Rob Zombie's premiere to the world of film took the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Manson family and blended them together to make a malicious technicolor hick stew. House of 1000 Corpses introduced us to the Firefly family, consisting of Mama Firefly and her grown children from multiple fathers, at least one of them being bred from the repulsive clown Captain Spaulding. Otis is the philosopher of the family, preaching venomous nonsense to the terrified cheerleaders he keeps tied up in his room. Baby is the only girl and wears it proudly, emulating her sultry mother and Hollywood vixens as she lures in passers-by (and cackling maniacally as she scalps them). The other Firefly children--bear-man mechanic Rufus and mute giant Tiny, plus the scattering of mutated fetuses that are preserved in jars around the house--lurk in the background, adding to the weirdness. The Devil's Rejects only brought us closer to the Fireflies when Otis, Baby, and Spaulding go on the run, taking us on the road with them as they evade capture from a sheriff with a grudge, with a few face-skinnings and familial spats along the way.

The contrast between the two films is stark and many fans will loudly proclaim their preference of one over the other. I feel they work as a series if you look at them as two completely different perspectives of the same thing. House of 1000 Corpses is a "normal person's" view of the family, a collection of grotesque figures who act completely unhinged in every conceivable way. The colors are harsh neons cutting through inky darkness, reality upturned by unexplainable visions. The experience of spending an evening with the Fireflies is not unlike Captain Spaulding's funhouse murder ride, over-the-top horrors popping out of the darkness to disturb and delight.

Meanwhile, Devil's Rejects takes a less spectacular approach. The Fireflies are the same people, only now we see them the way they see themselves--murderers, yes, but not cartoons. They're sloppy, grungy, regular folks from the sticks with questionable interests and zero social skills. Their reality isn't heightened because this madness is just what they do: manipulate those unfortunate enough to encounter them and take all they can get before taking flight again. Their actions are monstrous, but Devil's Rejects shines between the carjackings and taking of hostages when we get the chance to know them as people.

They defend their home and each other with a hail of bullets. Otis and Baby squabble like kids in the backseat. Otis and Spaulding maintain a palpable "fuck you Dad!" rivalry. Mother Firefly speaks of her children's exploits with all the gooey pride of a mommy blog. They're a real family, and it's endearing to see who they are when they're not putting on a spookshow for their captive audience. That's probably why it's a little heartbreaking that the inevitable shootout with the police ends in their bloody deaths, but it is interesting that in this moment, reality is heightened. Because if you were a murderous maniac from the boonies and your years-long spree finally came to the end at the wheel of a top-down car headed towards a roadblock, wouldn't you imagine yourself going out guns blazing and "Freebird" blaring as you speed into oblivion? Of course you would.

Spider Baby is one of those movies that may have been lost to time if not for a Blu-Ray release in 2015, and even now it's still not exactly revered. I wouldn't have known about it were it not for a small review I read that I can't even remember the source for, and thanks to my Shudder subscription (they don't sponsor me or anything, but seriously, it is SO worth $4.99 a month), I was treated to the mad delights of the Merrye family.

The Merrye children are afflicted with a disease so peculiar and rare that it's named after them. The beginnings of puberty are a difficult time for all of us, but imagine if it only got worse from there (well, worse than adulthood). Merrye syndrome kicks in during the early teen years, the victim's brain degenerating to childishness with further regression leading to a completely feral state. Unfortunately for the players in Spider Baby, the Merrye children are already well into the stages of their disease.

Eldest son Ralph (an explosively expressive Sid Haig in an early role) is the most far gone, regressed to complete muteness and his brain reduced to a primitive state (the language of the 1967 film is decidedly more colorful). Sisters Elizabeth and Virginia are more lucid than their brother, but the evidence of their degradation is even more eerily apparent. Pretty, soft-spoken Elizabeth is dainty and polite, an otherwise perfect debutante if not for her limitless capacity for hatred. Most fascinating of all is wild-eyed Virginia and her obsession with spiders, her favorite game being to sneak up on people and trap them in her web. My favorite moments in the film spring directly from Virginia: her dark features, vacant yet calculating expression, coquettish sultriness, and most of all, the delicious way she says "spiderweb."

The members of the family that have made it to adulthood--thus total savagery--are kept locked away in the basement while the children's father lies decomposing in the upstairs bedroom. All of this madness is kept under control by the family's loyal caretaker Bruno (Lon Chaney), but just barely: Ralph has the mind of a toddler and the appetites of a grown man, while Virginia has a habit of "stinging" people with butcher knives. Bruno is already reaching the end of his rope by the time distant cousins arrive sniffing after the family estate. He does his best to portray the children as innocent victims of a misunderstood disease. Despite his efforts, the children undermine his claims at every turn, offering their guests roasted alley cat and engaging them in games of "playing spider" before the really freaky stuff starts. Realizing the grim future for his beloved wards should the truth reach the public, Bruno knows the only thing to do is to finally end their suffering, and his own.

Spider Baby has certainly not aged well in a politically correct sense, with terms that we have virtually outlawed today being thrown around like confetti. But the heart of the film, and its entire appeal, lies in its preternaturally talented young cast, especially the two sisters. Elizabeth with her blonde hair and prim white dress, her kitten-soft voice cooing, "Don't you just hate her?" Virginia with her twitchy yet graceful movements and intense gaze, only showing her sweeter side in the presence of her spider friends. It's a shame that the actresses playing Elizabeth and Virginia didn't rise to the cult status of their male costars, because they truly shine as haunting icons on par with the Grady sisters as some of the greatest terror siblings put to film.

Despite and perhaps because of their condition, the siblings clearly care for one another, and their shared adoration for Bruno causes them to trust him completely, even as he tearfully leads them to their deaths. Their ending, like the Firefly family, is surprisingly bittersweet. The movie is still somewhat obscure, not showing up on as many "top ten" lists as it deserves, but it does still maintain a charming website that provides in depth information on the film itself as well as behind the scenes goodies. And, like all the great campy classics, it did inspire a musical adaptation.

And speaking of musicals...

Takashi Miike is responsible for some of the most traumatic horror films to come out of Japan in recent memory, and that's saying something given the wealth of nightmare fuel that wonderful country has blessed us with over the years. His most notorious works are Ichi the Killer and Audition, both renowned for their graphic depictions of torture, deeply flawed characters, and all-around insanity. My personal favorite of his work brings the agony and the ecstasy together in Imprint, a gorgeous installment of Showtime's sorely missed Masters of Horror series. Despite his talents in the horror community, Miike has never been a slave to genre, most notable in his home country for action films, which quite often veer into bouts of comedy, fantasy, and cartoon physics. This is to say that, if you know the man's work, then you know to expect the unexpected.

The Happiness of the Katakuris takes a detour from these other families in that they are not introduced to us as murderous outcasts, but instead must rise to madness. The Katakuris are a simple family with a simple dream of trying to get their isolated bed and breakfast off the ground. Patriarch Masao (Kenji Sawada) places all his hopes on the lofty promise of a highway being built in the area, but the reality of constant work and nothing to show for it hangs heavy on his family. Finally, one day, a guest appears--unfortunately, he's picked this as the site of his suicide. The family is devastated when they discover the body, but are even more distressed at the idea of word getting out that their first guest died on the property.

They bury the body and no sooner are they done than another pair of guests arrive, only to promptly drop dead during their stay as well. The Katakuris are innocent bystanders in the ensuing string of unfortunate incidents, trying desperately to maintain normalcy while cleaning up after their guests' tragedies. And what better way to keep a smile on your face than a rousing sing-a-long? The film doesn't reveal itself to be a musical until the bodies start piling up, but when the lighting changes and everyone starts singing and dancing their feelings, boy howdy.

Miike runs the gambit of any good musical, from the longing "I want" song to the operatic dialogue exchange set as lyrics. The soundtrack ranges from effectively hilarious to surprisingly touching. There are not one but two love ballads in this flick, which beautifully juxtapose one another in style and sincerity. The first involves single mother Shizue seeing a handsome naval officer and the two professing their instant attraction through song, literally flying on wires across a rose-filled ballroom. It's cheesy and completely over the top with no hint of reality, and that's entirely the point: the officer turns out to be a con man, and it's evident from the get go that his grand gestures are all bullshit. Meanwhile, the second love song is between Masao and his wife Terue, supporting one another at their lowest moment through a disco ballad that's shot with all the soft-lit loveliness the 70's could offer. It's still cheesy, but it's a more palatable kind of cheese: the cheesiness of true affection between two people who are going to stick it out till the bitter end. It ends up being kind of beautiful and awfully sweet.

Also worth mentioning, this clip is the film's opening scene, and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything that follows besides setting the bar for insanity.

Please, do yourself a favor. Just watch it.

We all think our families are crazy. We all watch the Hallmark movies every year and wonder how great it must be to be apart of a happy (white upper-middle class Christian) family like that, but we all know the hard truth. Nobody is perfect, so certainly a collection of people from the same gene pool forced together in one room can't even come close. But family is what you make it, and often that means setting aside your differences and coming together for a common purpose, from outrunning the cops to withholding a family secret to burying a body or five. Thankfully, for most of us, it can be as simple as avoiding another dinner that ends with Mom crying in the backyard.

"It's not quite reality" -- The Legacy of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT

I was eight years old when The Blair Witch Project came out, and I knew from the first trailer that I was absolutely not interested in seeing it. Being a notorious scaredy cat as a kid, I steered clear from scary movies, despite my intense curiosity about them. The Blair Witch Project boasted being both terrifying and true, so there was no way in hell I was going near that horrorshow.

I may have gone my whole life without giving Blair Witch Project another thought if it wasn't for my childhood friend Hannah, who watched plenty of scary movies and of course had to tell me every frightening detail as soon as she could. I give credit to Hannah for introducing me to many awesome formative things during our childhoods, but her affection for horror movies were never something I could bring myself to follow her on at that age. (It probably irritates her how much now I claim to love horror when I was once brought to tears refusing to watch Darkness Falls.)

So our elementary school was in the middle of farm country, mostly surrounded by cow fields, with a small pine forest bordering the back of the playground that separated the school grounds from the farmland. The forest featured a path that was around two miles, and it was common for our P.E. period to take place hiking the trail. Usually it was a rather nice walk, even for an indoor kid like me. The forest was especially lovely in the early winter when the mornings were bright and cold and you could just enjoy a walk in the woods while chatting with your friends.

It was during one of these early winter trail walks on a cloudy morning that Hannah decided to share with our group how she had just seen The Blair Witch Project...and how much the woods around here reminded her of the ones in the movie. I brushed her off at first, but Hannah continued to explain more about the movie, and claimed to see more and more familiar symbols all around us. The forest grew darker as we walked, the air seemed to grow colder, and by the halfway mark of the trail, I was in a cold sweat and begging her to shut up.

It was around this point of peak jitters that the trees broke to reveal the neighboring farmland, where there just so happened to be the sunken, rotting carcass of a cow resting against the fence. Any other day, it would have been nothing. That day, it was a hideous omen from the witch of the wood, and we all ran screaming for our lives. It wasn't until we managed to tear past all of our classmates and burst out the other end of the trail into the thankfully bright playground that I felt safe again.

I will never forget being doubled over and out of breath, panicked for my very life, when I heard Hannah say, "Oh, guys. I just remembered...the Blair Witch is in Maryland."

I could have killed her.

Some years have passed now and I have since come to a place of peace about that embarrassment, but it's always stuck with me as one of my first brushes with true horror. It also remains my main argument when talking about the resonating potency of The Blair Witch Project. Even without seeing the movie, even in broad daylight with people all around me, I was still captivated and terrified just listening to a classmate's summary of it. Hannah had told me about plenty of scary movies, but this one was visceral, raw, absolutely within the realm of possibility, even in our own backyards. That's the power of a good scary story--the kind that gets under your skin and holds you tight in its clammy grip, no matter how safe you feel in your fluorescent-lit modern world.

It goes without saying that The Blair Witch Project is amazing, a fine specimen in the masterclass of horror. All the "true story"and "found footage" hubbub aside, the movie stands on its own as an amazing slow burn of paranoia and terror. I am naturally unnerved by spooky sounds at night, people yelling at me, and camping trips, so this movie is some of my deepest anxieties all mashed into one black-and-white nightmare. But it's not just the movie itself that spawned an obsession that keeps me coming back at least once a year...it's the ever-expanding, ongoing project of the Blair Witch.

It's difficult to put into words what a miraculous thing the web of Blair Witch lore is. The idea that it extends as far as it does is remarkable just given that it came out in the infancy of the internet, and still set the stage for Cloverfield-level ARG obsession. Aside from the original website , which is still accessible and delightfully archaic, there were several books as well as three video games following separate angles of Blair Witch lore. 

Most fans are aware of The Curse of the Blair Witch, the TV mockumentary that delved into the bloody history of (fictional) Burkittsville. The special was comprised of unused footage from the film--mostly talking head interviews with locals, detectives, and folklorists. It follows all the same beats of any of the Dateline and In Search Of-type shows that were explosively popular at the time, and lent just an ounce more legitimacy to the true story claims. As far as publicity stunts go, it's impressively produced, admirably straight-faced, and--if you didn't know any better--absolutely convincing. The special can be found in the features of the DVD, but it's just as easily accessed on Youtube.

Lesser known are the other mockumentaries floating around Youtube that make use of even more deleted scenes and dive even further into history, one even going so far as to veer away from witchy territory to explore the story of Rustin Parr, which frequently parallels (despite predating) Making a Murderer and Cropsey. All of these feature casts full of natural actors playing experts and witnesses, some making appearances in multiple docs. All of these people are so effortlessly convincing that it causes one to wonder where they are now (hopefully they're at least doing local theater because these folks got charisma).

So what of The Blair Witch Project's actual legacy--that is, as far as pop culture is concerned? It remains one of the most successful indie films and one of the most profitable films of all time, with its microscopic budget earning back $250 million worldwide. While it didn't exactly invent found footage, it set the standard for many, many movies to come in the revolution of shaky cam cinema. It remains one of the greatest tricks Hollywood ever pulled, as the film was able to retain its "true story" badge for quite some time. True enough, anyway, to harass the residents of the real-life Burkittsville, Maryland into completely disowning any connection to the movie, going so far as to change to design of their town sign to prevent fans from stealing it...again.

There was a sequel the following year that abandoned the found footage angle to adopt a slicker, more Scream style in an attempt to be in fashion with other horror movies at the time. Personally, I have a soft spot for Book of Shadows because it's just good fun, but I understand why it isn't fondly remembered among horror fans. Its meta-humor isn't exactly respectful to the utter grimness of the original, and it suffers from major schizophrenia in the editing room, but somehow despite abundant silliness, it ends up being kind of wonderful and I'm glad it exists. (Plus, seeing baby Dodd Gerhart be a stoner goofball tour guide is never a bad thing.)

As far as the "official" sequel is concerned....it's not great. Blair Witch (2016) attempts to literally follow in the footsteps of the original by having some teens trek into the woods where Heather and her crew disappeared, only this time there are more people and more cameras. I can appreciate what the movie is going for, but aside from the stick figures and passing mentions of familiar lore, it isn't much different from any other run of the mill, forgettable found footage ripoff. (Seriously, what was even the point of having a drone in this film?) I will give them credit for the fleeting reveal of the witch and how she looks pretty close to what I always pictured (despite being fairly derivative of the monster from [REC], but I'll let it slide). Unfortunately, it takes away from the perfect mystery of the original film, which drew a lot from what we didn't see.

See, there was always a plan to show the witch. Near the climax of the original film, Heather and Mike flee their tent in terror and take off running into the woods. At some point in the chaos, Heather looks to the side and screams "What the fuck is that? What the fuck is that?" The camera jostles all around, but all we see is darkness, trees, and Heather running up ahead.

What we do not see is the paid extra standing somewhere off in the distance wearing a spooky getup and trying to look menacing, because the camera simply didn't catch him on film. The failed effect managed to remain in the final cut because, despite itself, it becomes even more chilling when we don't see anything. It remains one of the film's most frightening moments, because we are forced to wonder what Heather is seeing, if what she sees is even real, what could make her scream like that.

That's the true magic of The Blair Witch Project, the same magic that sent me running for my very life through the friendly, familiar woods around my elementary school playground. It's because the simple horrors are always the most effective. The very idea that what we think we know can be utterly useless, that three people with maps and survival manuals and all the modern day know-how could wander into the woods and never come back. It's a giggle in the dark, figures made of twigs and twine, a thousand tiny handprints on a dirty wall. The idea that something ancient, "of the Old World," still lurks in the wilderness, undisturbed until some overconfident millennial stumbles into its territory. 

All About Steve -- STRANGER THINGS

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SEASONS 1 & 2 OF STRANGER THINGS

Just like most of you, I devoured the second season of Stranger Things in a matter of hours and am now dealing with an epic hangover full of feels. There is very little in this world I'm not cynical about, but Stranger Things has a way of bashing down every one of my walls with thumping synth bass and homegrown nostalgia. If you're anything like me, you've already discovered the wealth of essays and thinkpieces online explaining all the many ways in which the show is so damn perfect, so there's no need to repeat the obvious power it has over its viewers. But it's not just about the inversion of tropes and fantastic music that sets Stranger Things so high in the ranks of great television--it's the characters.

At the end of the day, all these pitch-perfect 80's references wouldn't matter much if the people living within them were just as pastiche. And Stranger Things' greatest strength lies in that magic formula of the familiar turning into something new, just like childhood itself. That magic makes watching something as simple as a bunch of kids riding their bikes and sniping at each other over D&D lore a joyful experience--a vibrant feeling of nostalgia for our own childhoods as well as an almost parental pride in watching these kids grow up.

Even characters that start out as cliches slowly become something else entirely unexpected: ballet-pink Nancy realizes she is secretly a badass, known nutcase Joyce turns out to be seeing more clearly than the entire police department, and Scumbag Steve transforms into the world's greatest babysitter.

I need this Funko figure.

Steve is one of those characters that, when you're discussing the show with a group, the very mention of his name causes the whole crowd to stop and spit and scoff and say "Steeeeve" with such utter contempt that no further commentary is necessary. It was one of the absolute truths of Season One: Will Byers is trapped in a parallel dimension, the government is in on it, Hopper is not to be fucked with, and we all hate Steve.

Like anyone, I had a lot of feelings about Steve from the beginning, mostly negative. My first time watching the show, it was instant, intense hatred for this poofy-haired, over-confident King Shit who was really bad at interpreting the word "no." He was in every way the asshole we all knew from high school, some swaggering peacock that would only look your way if he wanted to fight or to fuck. So as much as the show calls to mind all the wonderful things from childhood, Steve served as a reminder of a lot of the crappy ones. This hatred for Steve soon dulled into mild irritation, as I was assured that soon enough he would be punished for his sins, hopefully by way of getting gobbled up by an interdimensional beast.

But then something happened: Steve got his ass severely kicked.

It was glorious.

After this severe spanking to his ego, Steve's more human side begins to emerge. He sees the error of his ways with surprising sincerity and immediately begins trying to turn things around, starting with cleaning up his slut-shaming graffiti about Nancy. It's this moment that beautifully illustrates the beginning of Steve's redemption: he made a big bombastic display of his hurt feelings for the whole town to see, only to realize how immature and hurtful it was towards a girl he genuinely cares about. Now he has to clean up his mess, and it's not coming out easily. For once, his popularity and charm will do him no good. He really needs to scrub in order to erase this mistake.

He follows this up by going to Jonathan's house and apologizes for his general shittiness with nearly frantic humility, only to stumble into a house full of booby traps and a very pissed off monster. And it was at this exact moment that Stranger Things busted through my last remaining wall of cynicism and I began to fall helplessly in love with Steve Harrington.

My thoughts exactly.

The Duffer Brothers recently revealed that Steve as a character was exactly the hollow douche he appeared to be until Joe Keery auditioned for the role. They said that his natural charisma and likeability instantly changed the way Steve was written, and you can see it as early as the very first episode if you really look for it. Joe is able to show through subtle expressions and delivery that some of his more dicktastic moments are tinged with just the slightest flicker of discomfort. Perfect example--when Steve casually destroys Jonathan's camera in what is ostensibly a defense of his lady's honor but in reality is just a dick move, you can see in his body language how instantly he regrets it. But, ever the tough guy, ever the King Shit, he walks away before his guilty conscience can chime in.

See, the thing with Scumbag Steve is that he is a scumbag because that is what he feels he is supposed to be. He grew up wealthy, he knows his way around a can of mousse, and he "kinda looks like" that guy from Risky Business (yeah, sure Steve), so he poises himself be That Guy. That Guy gets all the ladies. That Guy beats down anyone that steps to him. No one says "no" to That Guy. Maybe the reason we are so inherently bitter towards Steve in Season One is because we can sense that he's just a big phony. All that swagger, all that posturing--it's all fake, merely a performance of the kind of guy Steve thinks he should be. And for all intents and purposes, it's been working for him quite well, up until he begins courting Nancy Wheeler.

The full scope on my feelings for Nancy are for another blog, because I have a lot to say about how damn proud I am of my girl (actually, I probably have enough material gathered up in my head to write long-winded, overly emotional thinkpieces for every single character in the cast), but for our purposes today, let's focus on the profound effect she has on breaking down the thick layer of sleaze that coats Steve in Season One.

From the jump, Nancy is not swayed by Steve's usual tactics of seduction--you know, those old romantic gestures of shoving a girl up against the bathroom wall and interpreting a cancelled date as an invitation to sneak in her bedroom window. To his credit, for all his rapey vibes in the beginning, Steve does catch on pretty quick that Nancy is different from his former conquests, and what starts out as just another notch on his bedpost quickly slides into something more sincere. Nancy's sweetness and genuine decency begins to chip away at Steve's need to look cool in front of his friends, and when she blows him off to hang out with outcast Jonathan Byers, it is both an unexpected blow to his ego and a wake up call that maybe being a dick to everyone isn't the best way to show that you care.

But this is still gross.

The end of Season One shows Steve blissfully happy to be snuggled up with Nancy in his Christmas sweater watching It's a Wonderful Life with her folks, while she listlessly stares off in the distance, leaving us questioning just how long this relationship can last. Season Two wasted little time in answering us, since the second episode ends with Nancy drunkenly revealing her true feelings about their seemingly perfect union: "It's all bullshit."

To be fair, he had it coming. You do not fuck with a girl's white sweater.

As if this wasn't enough, Steve also has to tangle with new psycho in town Billy, who is aiming to be the new king of the senior class. If Steve was tempted to go back to his old ways after being dumped, any attraction quickly sours with seeing the ugliness that radiates from Billy and all his unhinged alpha male aggression. Heartbroken and humiliated, Steve is left to stumble around with a new identity that has made him a more decent person but causes him to lose his place within the high school food chain. Seeing no other option than to return to the only good thing he knows, he goes to her house to try to reconcile. But instead of finding Nancy, he runs into Dustin who says he needs the assistance of a certain bat armed with rusty nails, and suddenly, everything falls into place.

Scumbag Steve becoming Babysitter Steve is one of the most magnificent transformations of a character I've ever seen. It's on par with Jaime Lannister going from an incestuous bloodthirsty prick to a one-handed man of honor. In a season that seemed to pride itself on attempting new team-ups between characters, this one is the last thing you see coming and one of the most delightful surprises of a show that aims to shock. As much as I love Hopper being Eleven's new dad, there is little that compares to the feels of watching Steve and Dusty walk down the railroad tracks talking about girls.

And the benefits of quality hair care products.

If you're one of the non-believers that chalked up Steve's heroics at the end of Season One as merely an attempt to win back his girlfriend, then Season Two should put that shallow read to rest. Once again, Steve is inadvertently dragged into a second encounter with the Demogorgan(s), but this time it is undoubtedly selfless. He willingly puts himself in danger to help--and then fiercely protect--a bunch of kids that shouldn't mean anything to him. Not only does he square off against a gang of literal monsters, but he even throws himself in front of the testosterone-fueled freight train that is Billy when he comes looking for his stepsister. When he wakes up from his severe ass-whooping in a car being driven by a thirteen-year-old, he has one of the most fantastic freak-outs put to film. And come on, tell me you didn't get chills watching him swing that bat again like a goddamn superstar.

Come at me, bro.

Nancy's influence certainly contributed to Steve's metamorphosis, but ultimately, it does not define him. Because for all the softening the love of a good woman can do to a hard man, it is obligation and responsibility--these moments that we are sometimes accidentally thrust into--that reveal who we truly are. And, surprise, Steve reveals that not only is he a good person, but also the King Shit he always tried to be, only in a different way than anything he could have prepared for.

Stranger Things is that rare perfect show, striking the balance between exploiting our nostalgia and expanding upon it, teasing out unique perspectives on old tropes while introducing us to rich characters who are both comfortingly familiar and refreshingly new. But Steve Harrington stands out among this wonderful cast by becoming something entirely unexpected: a hero.