New details revealed about Stranger Things 4 big bad, Vecna

Earlier this week, a June 2021 roundtable discussion between the Stranger Things cast and crew and various media outlets started circulating. It’s given us a lot more information about season 4 of Netflix’s ’80s paranormal horror series, which actor Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler) called “the scariest and the darkest” season of the show yet. Stranger Things has always included terrifying monsters, but from what we’re hearing, season 4 will ratchet things up to a whole new level, in part because the kids in the main cast are all older now so the tone of the horror is able to grow up alongside them.

In season 4, we’ll be introduced to Vecna, the new boogeyman causing trouble in Hawkins, Indiana. In addition to all the teases about how terrifying this season will be, we’ve gotten a bit more information about who Vecna is and what we can expect of him.

“We’ve always wanted to do our… whatever version of… a Freddy Krueger, or a Pinhead, or a Pennywise, showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer said during a recent trailer breakdown. “Because those were the monsters… the villains… supernatural villains that terrified us the most when we growing up.”

Vecna is a mysterious new villain

As with the rest of the major Stranger Things monsters, Vecna’s name is drawn straight out of Dungeons & Dragons. In the game, he’s a wizard who grasps for too much power, and eventually transforms into a lich (undead wizard with even more power). In Stranger Things, Vecna is a shadowy, Night-King esque presence who will surely haunt our young heroes.

Vecna is the monster in the attic of a haunted house we’ll be spending quite a bit of time in during this season. The Creel House has been teased for months now, and it’s intrinsically linked to Vecna in some mysterious, nefarious way.

The Nightmare on Elm Street references are layered, as Victor Creel will be played by none other than Freddy Kreuger actor Robert Englund. Per Entertainment Weekly, Victor moved to into the house with his family during the 1950s. But then strange things started happening at the Creel House. It ended up leading to the grisly murder of his family, and Victor has spent the rest of his years in a psychiatric hospital. What happened in the Creel House, and how it relates to Victor and Vecna, will be one of the major mysteries of season 4. “What occurs in that house is pivotal to understanding what has been happening in Hawkins all of these years,” teased Ross Duffer.

Who is Vecna?

When Vecna first appeared in the latest Stranger Things trailer, it sparked all kinds of debate on the internet as to his identity. One popular theory was that it might be Billy, who died during the climax of season 3, revived somehow by the Upside Down. But we doubt it; he seems older than that.

But there is an actor under the suit. And whether Vecna already existed before Victor Creel and his family moved to Hawkins or he was the result of whatever happened to the Creel family, you can bet we’ll learn more about it.

Of course, what’s an undead-lich-guy without a trusty army of monsters to do his bidding? In addition to Vecna, demogorgons and who knows what else, we’ll see a flying variant of Upside Down creature that the Duffers are calling “demo-bats.”

“We always like to introduce a new demo-creature, as you will, and so we were excited about introducing demo-bats,” Matt Duffer explained. “Maybe one of them alone is not very dangerous, but when there’s hundreds and hundreds of them coming to you at the same time, they’re very, very deadly, and they also have the ability to act as spies, so you may not even see one in the tree, and it spies you, and then suddenly because everything is a hive mind in the Upside Down, every monster in there knows that you’re there.”

The trailer included a few shots of Steve fighting off the demo-bats, as well as someone shredding on electric guitar in the Upside Down. Perhaps to confuse the bats with sound?

Whoever Vecna is, he’s sure to spell dark times ahead for Hawkins. The idea of the show doing a Freddy Kreuger-type villain is really exciting, and has the potential to be terrifying. One can only hope they commit to making it as gruesome as possible. More horror!

The first half of Stranger Things season 4 premieres May 27 on Netflix, with part two following on July 1.

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