When Netflix's Stranger Things arrived – all eight episodes at once, seemingly out of nowhere – a couple of weeks back, it hit some of us in the Digital Spy office like a Rubik's Cube to the temple.

With its '80s setting and mix of horror, sci-fi, suspense, drama and teenage nerds – not to mention an awesome synth-prog soundtrack – it may as well have come with a label saying, "Hey guys, this was made specifically for you".

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We've been through it in forensic detail (well, we walked round and round with compasses and walkie-talkies) looking for all the '80s movie and TV references we could find. Because we were those nerdy kids. Be warned: this contains spoilers.

1. The Evil Dead

Well the woods were a giveaway on this one, but you can also include the poster on Will Byers' wall and his "log cabin" in the forest, not to mention a tree that, if not outright evil, is certainly pretty sinister. Other movie posters spotted in the show are from The Dark Crystal, Jaws and The Thing.

2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

In Spielberg's epic, Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) loses his mind trying to replicate an image from his head in his front room out of mashed potato, rubble and garden-trash, while Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon) becomes similarly obsessed with the same image as she tries to find her missing son. In Stranger Things, Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) loses her mind trying to communicate with her missing son, Will, destroying her home in the process. The flashing Christmas lights that Joyce uses to talk to Will remind us of the end of Close Encounters too.

Also the bad government types disguising themselves as the Department of Energy call to mind the "nerve gas" scare the government uses in CE3K to keep people away from Devil's Tower.

3. V – The Mini-Series

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Remember the opening credits of the original series of alien-invasion drama V? An ominous synth pulses away as the camera pulls out from a red-on-black letter V? Now watch the Stranger Things credits.

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4. Stephen King's novels

We'll get to other King references later, but let's just deal with the show's logo first. The show's creators, the Duffer brothers, have admitted that they sent Stephen King's '80s novels to the design house to inspire them.

5. David Cronenberg

11 is basically a Scanner from Cronenberg's 1981 horror – a person with telepathic and telekinetic powers who is being weaponised by evil government types. She could totally make your head explode. Instead she squeezes the government guys' heads until blood comes out of their eyes.

And then there's Matthew Modine's eccentric, artificially-greyed hairstyle which must be a nod to David Cronenberg himself.

6. Carrie

As well as being a scanner, 11 is also clearly Carrie. She's a young girl who is just hitting adolescence and developing powers of telepathy and telekinesis. She's largely benevolent and really just wants a boy to like her and to fit in, but her powers are great and somewhat uncontrollable. Also, she's largely informed by her dysfunctional relationship with her overbearing single parent, aka Matthew Modine.

Don't be dumping a bucket of pig's blood on this girl.

7. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

Stranger Things is totally dipped in E.T. The struggling single mother trying to hold stuff together. The lonely boy who makes friends with an other worldly being. The bike chase. The authority figures shot in silhouette in the woods with bouncing torches. 11 is even dressed up in a wig and a dress as a disguise strikingly similar to the Extra Terrestrial when she goes to visit the school with the boys. Stranger Things references Spielberg's tearjerker but also mirrors it in tone and palette – soft, sweet, sad, nostalgic, longing.

8. John Carpenter

The Thing is playing on the TV in science teacher Mr Clarke's house (as an aside: favourite line from the show – when Mr Clarke asks Dustin why he wants to build a sensory deprivation tank at 10am on a Saturday night for he says: "...Fun"), and the monster's opening flower-head type face was reminiscent of the dog in that movie. But even more so, the score - the plinky plonky electronic-y music strongly brings to mind Halloween and The Thing.

9. Stand By Me

More Stephen King loveliness. Four nerdy best mates go on a quest to find a dead body, there they bond over their outsider status, reference popular culture and stand up to the bullies that torment them. Snacks are important. Grown ups are distant, disbelieving or a little bit evil.

10. The Goonies

The danger and the pathos feel like Stand By Me, but the playfulness and the sense of adventure feel like Richard Donner's 1985 movie The Goonies, where a gang of buddies go on a quest together, fight adult adversaries and have slightly cooler older siblings. We could imagine the kids from Stranger Things being mates with The Goonies in another life.

11. Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Because Nancy really really looks like a very thin version of the already-slim Mia Sara who starred in the seminal '80s classic as well as Ridley Scott's Legend.

11. Poltergeist

Poltergeist is mentioned – we see a flashback of Joyce giving tickets to see the film to Will, but later it's like they're living it when Will gets taken to another dimension which is dark and scary and full of monsters, and is only able to communication with his mum via electrical devices (lights in this case) and through the wall. Then when they come out of the Upside Down they are covered in goo.

12. The Empire Strikes Back

Dustin uses "Lando Calrissian" as a byword for betrayal, Lucas is told that fighting the 'Demagorgan' (ie the monster) with his "wrist rocket" (catapult) would be like "R2D2 going to fight Darth Vader" and Mike shows 11 his Yoda toy and commends her Jedi-like powers. The kids in the film have clearly seen The Empire Strikes Back and geek out about it whenever they get the chance.

Stranger Things is available to watch now on Netflix.

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