[grunting]

[snarling]

[both screaming] Holly, get back! 

What would Karen do if she encounters a Demogorgon? 

Stay away from my daughter.

[roaring] 

I don't think there was a take I didn't go full out on it.

[synth theme music playing]

[screaming] 

It was kind of incredible to be a part of such a pivotal scene. 

Mom! No!

[Matt] It was our dream to do a supernatural home invasion sequence, essentially. The fact that the Wheeler house has been safe from all of this, I think it makes it that much more horrifying that it is breached.

[Holly whimpering]

[roaring]

[screaming]

[Matt] This was one of the most complicated sequences in Season 5. It took a lot of planning. The whole sequence was storyboarded and pre-vis’d because it involved a lot of work from every single department. We had the Wheeler house on stage. It's like one of the few standing sets for Stranger Things that's been up since Season 1 in various forms. We needed to use cranes, and so we had to use three walls that were removable, and we had to choose which wall needed to go away.

[Heymann] We needed to create that red rift light coming down into a room and also to give room for her to get yanked up. We wanted as much as possible for those stunts to be performed by the actors. Cara was game. Nell was a total badass. 

I had, like, this massive harness on, like I was walking like a complete penguin. 

She was in wires and in a harness a lot this season and she was such a rock star. Just game for all of it.

[Koda] There was a Demogorgon that's got ahold of her, and there's not a Demogorgon there, so we have to create that look. So there was even a line on her leg to look like she was being pulled. One of the difficulties for me was remembering that I had to keep that leg straight, because obviously that's where all my weight is being pulled from. The stunt team were really amazing, and they helped me figure it all out so that I could focus on the performance.

[roaring]

[screaming]

[loud banging] What the heck? It's the proximity of evil in Stranger Things that motivates the flickering lights. Everything gets run through a board where we have a remote operator who's taking cues and is able to control remotely every single light on set. 

Typically, when just a single light flickers, we might have something like this. This is what we actually called the Holly Flicker, which is in Holly's room. This here is the lighting plot for this stage. We've got 40 to 50 in just her room, and over the whole stage it’s about 600. 

Mom!

[Karen] Holly?

Mom!

What's going on?

Mom, the monster!

[loud bang] 

The bottom of the tub was cut off and attached to the bottom of the tank so that two people could fit in it.

[Heymann] We tested it out to make sure that we liked the lens and that we could line it up. We also needed to basically sync up the cadence. The top edge of the tub is actually the cutline.

[Müller] Both dolly grips for that shot had to work in unison, essentially, to match the other's timing so that there was no speed change. 

When we dunked, I made sure Cara's nightgown wasn't too see-through. So it's double-layered because I didn't want it to be too clingy, especially if you're going to see any stunt pads or protection underneath. With Nell, luckily, it's street clothes that can be wet and stay wet.

[Suhre] Karen is wearing a wig that has been bleached blonde and that has been permed. Some of the coolest shots were where it was moving and crossing and covering. Lots of rehearsal time with them prior to being able to go under the water and hold their breath.

[Curfman] We had to put weight belts on them so that they would stay on the bottom and not float up. You would squeeze my hand or I would squeeze your hand which signaled, you know, "Three, two, one, up." We could've held our breath longer. We were fine. I think we ended up having little competitions. I was just waiting for Cara to squeeze my hand. I was like, "I could stay here all day."

 Karen? Holly? 

We needed to know exactly where the Demogorgon was at every single moment so the actors and everyone working on it understood where it was. Geez. Oh God.

[Ames] We have a fantastic Demogorgon stand-in named JD. We're not doing motion capture or any performance capture with him. He is there so that the other actors and crew can see the Demogorgon is going to be there, they're going to be this big, and this is what they're gonna be doing.

[Garcia] We definitely go through rehearsals first. We have Ted swinging the golf club, trying to find out exactly where he should hit the kickpad. If you see that orange X on the kickpad right there, that's actually the eyeline for Ted.

[Müller] The bros wanted the POV of the Demogorgon, so we had to build roads and platforms in order to get the Steadicam at that height.

[Heymann] We also use a Demogorgon head that the VFX team has made to see how it kind of behaves with whatever lighting is set up for the scene.

[Garcia] Once I slash Ted, we get the stunt double in there and he just goes tearing through the wall.

[roaring]

[grunting]

[laughing] Oh my good gosh. Look at that! Wow!

[Royal] It was a little bit of a challenge because we knew this destruction was going to happen, so we had to find some doubles of various things. I had to find two of the same armoire. We had to make doubles of all the drapes and stuff. We had a Demogorgon claw that matches the nail handprint of a Demogorgon, so we just used that to drag along the walls. 

When we were shooting this scene, I came up and saw the total and complete destruction of Nancy's room and our room and the set. And I was very affected by seeing it. It brought back that memory of when the Duffers said, "Come see your house." "We just finished the Wheeler house. This is your kitchen, this is everything." Flash forward to now, this is the end of the house. Literally. Not just like, "We're done shooting here," it was destroyed.

[both exclaiming]

[both screaming] Go! Mom!

[Koda] This was a Texas switch, so Cara and Nell were starting the scene up on top of the stairs running down. Cara would duck out to the wall and the stunt double came running in and took the fall. Alice Ford, who doubled Cara, was a great match for her. She knocked this one out of the park.

[grunting painfully] Holly, get back! 

What would she do if she encounters a Demogorgon? Karen shares so many qualities with Nancy. That sort of ferocity, that strength, that courage, that bravery is such a part of who Nancy is. It also exists within Karen. Because they're struggling as a family to deal with what's happening with Holly… You're ridiculous. You don't even know how old she is, do you?

[Matt] We wanted to see Karen slightly intoxicated and the idea that then she would use this wine bottle as a weapon was a fun idea.

[Paterson] We worked really closely with Hiro to come up with what the Demogorgon would be doing and how Karen could interact with him. We wanted to really make sure it felt like they're both in that room together. We did some with just JD there holding up his hand, but she needed something to impact. We wanted to get in there with like a really tight eyeline. We used a piece of foam so that she could really lay into it. Cara ended up swinging that wine bottle for almost an hour. I don't think there was a take I didn't go full out on it.

[Karen screaming]

Mom! 

No! Stay away from my daughter.

[roaring]

[screaming]

[director] Cut! Thanks.

[Cara] The scream I did after breaking the bottle, this primal sound came out.

[screaming] Whether she even knows what the heck is going on, there's a monster in her kitchen and she's gonna fight to save her daughter. I don't think that they were anticipating the ferocity.

[emotional music playing] Cara was actually saying, "I want you to really hit me." "I want you to hit me hard." I was looking at Hiro like, "Should I do this?" And Cara's like "Just hit me." And so I go for it, and I'm being a little careful, and she's like "No, harder. I wanna feel it." So I'm like "Really? Okay." So I go a little harder and she's not wearing any pads or anything.

[Mike Mekash] When it comes to the Demogorgon wounds, the Duffers did not want them clean slices. They wanted them to be very jagged-edged. Her entire process was under two hours to get her in her deconstructed beauty makeup look, as well as her wig and her prosthetics on her chest.

[Mike Mekash] Once you start putting blood on a wound, it tends to travel everywhere. It's like constantly pit crewing, making sure that it looks the same throughout the entire day of shooting.

[Matt] The brutality of what occurs to Karen, we're hoping that it stuns audiences.

[Nancy] Mom! Please don't… Don't try to talk, okay? Just stay calm. I just love that they brought Karen into the story of what's going on in Hawkins and that she gets to really participate. It was truly one of my favorite scenes to film ever, with you.

[Nell] This was kind of the start of my journey on Stranger Things . It was kind of incredible to be part of such a pivotal scene.

[Matt] We love the juxtaposition between the ordinary and the extraordinary. That really has defined the show for so long, and this is sort of the ultimate example of those two things colliding.

[Ross] And I think it shows right away in this season that no one is safe, no place is safe, none of our characters are safe, even the ones that over the years have been shielded from these horrors. Well, no more.

[woman] Maybe four broken ribs.

[man] Stand by to intubate.

[heart monitor beeping]