Watch the first 8 minutes of Stranger Things 4

In mere days we’ll be back in Hawkins with all our pals, running from monsters in the Upside Down and drowning in copious amounts of ’80s references. Stranger Things 4 is set to be the show’s most ambitious season yet, with all nine episodes clocking in at over an hour (and the season finale at over 2). It’s been a long wait since season 3 aired back in 2019, but from the looks of things it’ll have been well worth it.

To ramp up the excitement, Netflix released the first eight minutes of Stranger Things 4 for our viewing pleasure. It teases not only a return to Hawkins, but to the past:

First 8 minutes of Stranger Things 4 reveal a bloodbath in Eleven’s past

The opening minutes of the Stranger Thing season 4 premiere are all about Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine), the scientist who experimented on Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and other children at the Hawkins Lab in order to hone their psychic abilities. Brenner was seemingly killed in season 1 by the Demogorgon, but from trailers we knew we’d be seeing the actor again this season.

This sequence is a flashback which shows Brenner going through his morning routine before going to work at the Hawkins Lab, where he’s playing psychic games with one of the children in order to test their capabilities. Brenner asks the boy to “find” another doctor remotely with his mind…only for things to quickly go awry. “They’re screaming,” the boy says, before alarms start sounding. “Six and Doctor Ellis. Dead. They’re both dead.”

As screams sound in the hallway and Brenner cautiously approaches the door, it suddenly bursts inward, knocking him out. When he wakes up, the boy he was testing is dead. Brenner walks through the halls of Hawkins Lab, past horrific scenes of broken bodies and walls painted with blood.

All the children and staff members have been killed…until Brenner wanders into the Rainbow Room and finds the sole survivor. Eleven stands at the far end of the room before a shattered mirror, her back to the doctor. As she turns around, we see she has blood streaming from her eyes and nose. “What have you done,” Brenner asks, before the scene cuts to black.

This sequence is a chilling way to open Stranger Things 4, and shows us that Eleven may have murdered a whole lot of people at the Hawkins Lab before she escaped and met Mike and the gang in season 1. Hopefully this is a mystery the show will unravel as season 4 goes on.

Volume I of Stranger Things season 4 is coming to Netflix on May 27 and will consist of seven episodes. Volume II will follow on July I and contain two more, including a season finale that is nearly as long as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. There will be a lot of Stranger Things this summer.

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