An Underrated Jennifer Lopez Sci-Fi Movie Helped Inspire Stranger Things Season 5

Netflix

As most "Stranger Things" fans know, the Netflix series is stuffed with pop-culture references big and small, from the obvious bordering on product placement to the much more subtle. Given the show's 1980s setting, the majority of these references tend to be to '80s products, shows, music, and films. In season 5 alone, we've seen '80s classics like "Good Morning Vietnam," "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors," and "The Goonies" turn up either literally or figuratively. Yet "Stranger Things" is a 21st-century show, and thus nothing is holding it back from making allusions to and taking inspiration from things that came out in the decades since the '80s. One standout example appears in season 5's "Chapter Six: Escape From Camazotz," in which a pack of Demogorgons hunts some of our Hawkins heroes in a manner highly reminiscent of the Velociraptors in the kitchen from 1993's "Jurassic Park."

There's a more obscure reference to another film lurking within an entire plotline of the fifth season, in which poor Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) is abducted by Vecna, aka Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower), and taken to a realm within Henry's mind, where she and other abducted children are being held in Creel's literal mind game. The concept of Holly and others being trapped inside the mind of an evil killer is one that Matt and Ross Duffer borrowed from an underrated sci-fi thriller starring Jennifer Lopez: Tarsem Singh's "The Cell," from 2000. The brothers initially thought of the film as inspiration for what would happen to Max (Sadie Sink) and Vecna after season four, and although Max is still very much a part of the plotline as filmed, the eventual addition of Holly helped solidify their choice to homage Singh's eerie, vibrant film.

New Line Cinema

In "The Cell," Lopez portrays Dr. Catherine Deane, a child psychologist who uses an experimental virtual reality device that allows her to enter the mind of another person, typically in order to help bring a patient out of a comatose state. It just so happens that the notorious serial killer Carl Rudolph Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) has a similar schizophrenic illness as some of Deane's patients, and the killer is left in a coma following another abduction of one of his victims. With the authorities desperate to discover the location of Stargher's final victim before they are killed by his timed booby trap, Deane must enter the twisted mind of a murderer. As befitting such a premise, Singh makes "The Cell" a particularly hallucinogenic and visually inventive experience.

The Duffers initially thought that such a direction could be taken with Max and Vecna, following the former falling into a coma at the close of the fourth season. Matt and Ross came up with yet another alter ego for Creel, who would be called Mr. Whatsit, and figured that a continuing duel between Max and Vecna could resemble Singh's thriller. As Matt Duffer told SFX magazine in the publication's Holiday Special issue:

"That idea for Mr. Whatsit came while we were working on the end of season 4. We thought it would be very cool to have Max trapped in Vecna's mindscape. The idea of moving around a killer's mindscape was something really interesting to us."

Netflix

While the Duffers' initial idea for Max's storyline in season 5 hewed very close to "The Cell," the concept mutated and expanded once the brothers needed to find a way to tie together several themes and threads that were integral to the show as it entered its final season. As Matt Duffer explained, the inclusion of Holly led them to make Henry's mindscape less dark and surreal and more fantasy-like:

"...[At first] it was just Max, and we hadn't put Holly into the show in a significant way. That idea came as we were working on season five, and that led to it having more of a twisted, fairy tale-like feel."

Indeed, the Duffers needed to find a way to integrate Vecna's world-threatening master plan with Max's plight, as well as reintroduce the element of adolescent children facing larger-than-life monstrous foes that began the series, now that the ensemble of kids from season 1 has all grown up. Including Holly in Vecna's "Camazotz" realm took care of all of that, and thus the mind-meld plotline became less an homage to"The Cell" and more of an homage to "The Great Escape," the 1963 film which is explicitly referenced in season 5. Still, the DNA of "The Cell" remains in Camazotz, enough to hopefully inspire some "Stranger Things" fans to go and seek it out. 

For those who do, be aware that there's a beautiful bells-and-whistles 4K UHD edition from Arrow Video you can purchase!