Stranger Things season 4 cast member hypes highest ‘stakes’ ever

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How wild will Stranger Things season 4 get?

Stranger Things Season 4: Sadie Sink (left) claims this season's "stakes are ... higher than they’ve ever been"
(Image credit: Netflix)

The consistent word about Stranger Things season 4 has been to expect a darker view of Hawkins' hijinks than ever before. And (unsurprisingly so) the show will put more on the line in the process, at least if a new interview with a cast member is to be believed.

This news comes to us from Collider, which talked to Sadie Sink, who plays Maxine "Max" Mayfield in the series. Sink hyped the new season, saying "The scale of the show just gets bigger and bigger each year so yeah, it’s just been really incredible to see where they’re going with the storyline. It’s really amazing this year. And just how the stakes are just so much higher. Higher than they’ve ever been."

So, what does that mean? Our immediate guess is that there will be more life and death situations than before.  That would fit with the report from the @StrangerNews11 twitter account, which claimed that "something 'massive' is happening at Hawkins cemetery," though they posted that in all-caps. This led people to speculate that a new character death may occur in season 4, even though it could be a service for Hopper or Billy.

If we're talking scale and stakes, though, could it be that we're not just looking at the fate of these friends and the small town of Hawkins anymore? The "scale" comment makes some sense given how season 3 ended: with the Russians having kidnapped an "American" we now know to be Hopper. 

Previous word about the mood of the season came from co-star Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), who told ET that "When it comes to the tone of the season, it's definitely, I think the tone is definitely matured for sure, and I think they do that on purpose because I think they want their show to mature with their kids. He also told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that this next run may be the "scariest" season thus far.

There's one big name that could be responsible for its scarier tone, horror icon Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) is going to play a character named Victor Creel. Variety reported that Creel is "a disturbed and intimidating man who is imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital for a gruesome murder in the 1950s," which sounds like typecasting to us.

Henry T. Casey
Henry T. Casey

Henry was a managing editor at Tom’s Guide covering streaming media, laptops and all things Apple, reviewing devices and services for the past seven years. Prior to joining Tom's Guide, he reviewed software and hardware for TechRadar Pro, and interviewed artists for Patek Philippe International Magazine. He's also covered the wild world of professional wrestling for Cageside Seats, interviewing athletes and other industry veterans.