Who is ready for another helping of Stranger Things?

July 3, 2019, 6:58 PM · Who's ready for another season of Stranger Things? Season 3 of the Netflix scifi/horror/80s-nostalgia series drops on Netflix on July 4, giving fans plenty to binge-watch as they wait for the traditional Independence Day fireworks.

Stranger Things 3 isn't coming just to Netflix, of course. If you've been following along, you might have heard that this new season, along with Season 2, will be featured in the new installation of the Stranger Things house that is coming this September to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood.

If you're not yet a fan, Stranger Things follows a cast of junior and senior high school students from fictional Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980s, paying homage to classic movies, TV shows, and games from the period. Stranger Things pushes a lot of emotional buttons for me, personally, as I was one of those students who went to junior and senior high in Indiana in 1980s, watching, playing, and listening to all the stuff the characters in the show do. (Though, seriously, where are the John Mellencamp songs? Just go ahead and pay for those music rights, Netflix!)

In the new season, Hawkins gets a new shopping mall... as well as a new collection of otherworldly monsters to terrify everyone in the community. It's that mix of the nostalgia with the supernatural that makes the show so much fun. After all, what's more horrifying: fighting monsters from another dimension or reliving what it was like to go through eighth grade?

All this makes Stranger Things a great IP for Halloween Horror Nights, too. So let's get ready for the next round of adventures with the gang from Hawkins with a look back at highlights from last fall's Stranger Things maze in Hollywood.

Update: And keeping with our theme park theme, here's an insider's look at the Stranger Things 3 premiere with Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), along with the cast after-party at the Santa Monica Pier.