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Netflix is developing Something Is Killing the Children to the small screen, and it could very well be a gruesome companion to Stranger Things.
Nostalgic horror stories like Fear Street have come back in a huge way over the past few years thanks to the breakout success of Stranger Things. And in the same way that Fear Street offered a bloodier take on nostalgic horror, James Tynion IV and Wether Dell’Edera’s hit indie comic Something Is Killing the Children is set to become a Netflix’s next series that could take the Stranger Things aesthetic in a more modern, more horrific direction.
Something Is Killing the Children debuted in 2019, and what was originally planned as a five-part limited series soon became an ongoing story about the things that go bump in the night in the town of Archer’s Peak and the mysterious woman who has come to put them down.
When children begin disappearing at an alarming rate and the locals helpless to stop the carnage, the inhabitants of Archer’s Peak are quick to turn on the one person who can actually help them — Erica Slaughter. This enigmatic anti-hero knows all about the monsters that have been stealing away and devouring the children of the town, but before she can put an end to the bloodshed, her own past comes calling. This sprawling conspiracy puts Archer’s Peak directly in the path of the shadowy organization dedicated to eliminating the same threats that plague it, as well as keeping those threats a secret by any means necessary.
While Something Is Killing the Children is indeed far gorier than anything Stranger Things has ever offered up, there is a considerable amount of overlap between the two that make them natural companion pieces on Netflix. Besides the small-town settings, the monsters at the heart of both of these series aren’t so different from one another, at least in concept. Both have relied on shadowy, vaguely humanoid beasts in their respective stories.
Where the creatures that plague Hawkins are almost more like alien invaders than outright ghouls, those that have made Archer’s Peak into their own killing field are driven simply by the need to feed and the primal desire to sew death and discord wherever they are. Of course, Something Is Killing the Children has also been set in a far more modern era than Stranger Things‘ own neon-lit, nostalgia-filled backdrop, but that could easily lend itself to making the overarching conspiracy of the series that much more foreboding.
If Something Is Killing the Children does in fact become a series at Netflix, it will likely enjoy the same explosion in popularity that dramatically raised the profile of comics-turned-shows like Locke & Key and The Umbrella Academy. With Locke especially, Netflix has already set the precedent for how a dark comics fantasy can be successfully translated from panels to streaming, even if it lacks the gruesome brutality of Something Is Killing the Children. But now that Fear Street has set a precedent for brutal, bloody adaptations, Something Is Killing the Children may very well be able to keep its killer edge in the transition from comics to screen.
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