The second season of Stranger Things will premiere on Netflix on Halloween of 2017, and so it’s fitting that the Comic-Con trailer kept things creepy. With Vincent Price’s opening monologue from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and plenty of Upside Down, flashlights-in-the-woods, and crumbling-suburbia footage, this trailer shows that Hawkins, Indiana is in for more of a fright.

Most importantly, it also shows the return of Eleven, who claws her way through the wall between the Upside Down and our world. Yay!

Aside from Eleven, the boys look like they’re having a rough time of it, too. Mike is still hunting for Eleven, saying, “Sometimes I feel like I still see her.” Will keeps having hallucinations and hop-backs to the Upside Down: one minute he’s in the arcade with his friends, the next he’s in the crumbling, deadly other world. His visions are driving him to stare into space, frantically draw the monster that’s coming, and warn his mother that the creature wants, “Not me. Everyone else.”

Plus, it looks like the boys catch a monster in their Ghostbusters ghostcatcher. What might emerge when they open it?

Aesthetically, this looks very similar to the first season, and it seems like a strong escalation of the original conflict with the Upside Down. I appreciate that it doesn’t look too much slicker, and I like that so much of the story seems to focus on the “What’s going on?” elements that made the first season feel so true to small-town life. Based on the size of the monster Will sees, they’re undeniably upping the stakes for the world-at-large – but I’m still optimistic that it won’t mean losing our focus on the citizens of Hawkins.

Then again, as the trailer warns, “Nothing’s gonna go back to the way it was.”

(Via Vox; image via screengrab)

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