Netflix's Stranger Things has become the must-binge TV event of the summer. In this interview, first published on May 18, the show's creators Matt and Ross Duffer tell Ed Power where the idea for the series came from

It's the early Eighties and in a small American town dark forces are stirring. A 12-year-old boy is missing, a monster stalks the woods, a young girl with seemingly supernatural powers has escaped a government facility. Thus begins Stranger Things, a new Netflix thriller described as a "love letter" to science fiction classics such as ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

"Steven Spielberg films were huge touchstones for us growing up," says Matt Duffer, who created, wrote and directed the eight-part series, together with twin brother Ross. "We wanted to evoke the sense of wonder we remember from our childhood, from ET and from Stephen King novels."

In Stranger Things, which arrives on the streaming network on July 15, the extraordinary is adroitly interwoven with the everyday. Alongside the story's otherworldly aspects, we follow the domestic struggles of single mother Joyce (Winona Ryder) and nerdy kid Mike (The 100's Finn Wolfhard) and his troubles with bullies. The drama flows from the interplay between the banal and the uncanny.