A Divisive Cult Horror Movie May Hold the Key to the Stranger Things Finale

This article contains spoilers for the first four episodes of Stranger Things season 5.

After a three-year gap, Stranger Things has finally returned for its fifth and final season on Netflix.

The first four episodes of season 5 see the town of Hawkins under heavy military lockdown while our intrepid gang investigates eerie phenomena tied to the villainous Vecna, who seems to be lying low after the events of season 4. As Will Byers’ original connection to Vecna and the hive mind is explored, little Holly Wheeler is abducted from her home by the human face of Vecna, Henry Creel, and transported to his surreal mindscape, where Max has been hiding out for a long time, unable to escape the deadly psychic prison.

Trapped in this place between life and death, Max is able to observe Vecna’s twisted memories, but not influence them. Nevertheless, she has gained important insight into how Vecna’s brain works and has even found a place inside it that he fears to tread. This feels inexplicable to us because on the surface, it’s a peaceful cave with a lovely vista. It’s a sanctuary for Max, but it’s also a place that Henry has built an impenetrable wall around for reasons we aren’t yet privy to.

The “getting inside the mind of a killer” trope has been used many times in TV and film, but Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer have confirmed that one movie specifically has loomed large when crafting this part of season 5’s story.

“I can’t tell you how many hours are spent in the writers’ room discussing the movie The Cell, the Jennifer Lopez/Tarsem movie.” Matt Duffer told Variety. “It’s such a great concept, because they enter the mind of a serial killer. It was the closest thing we could think of that parallels what we were doing. Our serial killer mindscape ends up being pretty different, but it’s probably why we ended up having a desert in there. A lot of desert sequences in The Cell.”

The Cell, which was a commercial success but divided critics, has since become a cult classic. It follows Lopez’s child psychotherapist, Catherine Deane, who uses an experimental technology to enter the minds of comatose patients. After serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio) falls into a coma just after kidnapping his latest victim, Catherine agrees to try and find out where he’s stashed them before they meet a grisly end.

When Catherine is inside Carl’s mind, she encounters a nightmarish landscape littered with his trauma and violence that shifts between beauty and horror, much like the inside of Vecna’s mind. If the rest of season 5 continues to pay homage to the movie, we might see the comatose Max become a key player in taking down Vecna from the inside.

This may also prove fatal for Max. The deeper Catherine went in Carl’s mind, the more dangerous his projections became. Catherine nearly loses her own grip on reality while trapped there, and the climax of the movie sees her not only struggle to extract vital clues to the latest victim’s location but also discover the sympathetic, abused child inside Carl’s mind. Catherine is compassionate to Carl’s inner child, but must choose between saving that innocent part of him or stopping the monster. In the end, he convinces her to kill him out of mercy.

Stranger Things season 5 has laid out the puzzle pieces of Vecna’s plan to use the town’s children to reshape the world into a nightmare of his creation. But with The Cell being the closest parallel to The Duffer Brothers’ vision for their series and the stage play The First Shadow exploring Henry’s innocent childhood before he was irrevocably altered by a trip to an alternate dimension, we might find that the only way to stop him is for someone to make a sincere connection with a younger version of him.

Whether it’s Max who makes that connection remains to be seen, as Will is also revealed to have a deep link to the hive mind by the end of episode four. Eleven has also discovered her sister, Eight, captured by the military. Both were shaped by Henry’s abilities and could potentially get through to him. Meanwhile, Dustin, often described as the heart of the series, might be the linchpin of the whole campaign.

There are lots of players on the board going into the final four episodes of Season 5. Taking Vecna down from the inside might require a group effort.