If you were a kid of the 1980s, or if you simply are a fan of the films of the 1980s, Netflix’s new series Stranger Things will feel very familiar in very satisfying ways.

Set in the 80s, the series centers on the disappearance of a young boy, Will (Noah Schnapp), under some very mysterious circumstances – which happens nearly simultaneously with the arrival of a girl only known as Eleven (Millie Brown). Desperate to find Will, his friends – Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) – are the ones who discover Eleven and quickly learn this odd girl, who rarely speaks and has a shaved head, also possesses some notable superhuman abilities.

At the same time, Will’s mother, Joyce (Winona Ryder), and older brother, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), are trying to find him – and discovering other incredible and sometimes very dangerous events are happening around them in their town in the process.From the moment Stranger Things begins, you can feel the influences that have guided series creators Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer (Wayward Pines). The depiction of these young kids and the way they speak, interact and, yep, ride bikes together, feels incredibly Spielbergian – quickly evoking the vibe of the domestic/"kids on an amazing adventure" scenes of E.T. (plus some of the Spielberg-produced The Goonies).

However, Stranger Things isn’t only going for the awe and the earned sentiment of Spielberg. This is a true mash-up of 80s influences. The great opening credits make this clear with their very John Carpenter-style music and vibe, and what follows is often scary – even getting into outright horror movie material, complete with some gore and at least one unfortunate victim.and it shows in the final product.

So yes, while Super 8 (which Spielberg himself produced for J.J. Abrams) already did a heavy 80s Spielberg homage in recent years (albeit mixed in with a giant monster), the mixture of content here – and the feeling that the Duffers have absorbed and are reinterpreting several different kinds of stories from the 1980s – helps Stranger Things stick out.

Of course, the risk is that this could all just feel like a tribute band – fun, sure, but with no real identify of its own. But Stranger Things manages to create a compelling world of its own, centered around a group of very relatable, likable characters. A huge part of that is due to how well the kids work. The Duffer brothers and their casting director Carmen Cuba clearly worked hard to find kids who felt very real and without the overly polished and sometimes false nature certain child actors have and all of the kids here are great and play incredibly well off one another. Brown and Wolfhard are given some very poignant moments together and it all plays as genuine, even in the midst of the bigger than life circumstances and throwing in the powers Eleven has.Representing the teen contingent, Heaton and Natalia Dyer (as Mike’s sister, Nancy) are also very believable and feel much more like real life teenagers than many films or TV series depict. As a big fan of Ryder’s, I wish her role were a bit more nuanced at times – Joyce is an understandably worried, frazzled mother for most of the 8 episodes, without a ton of variation – but Ryder is more than capable of not only conveying Joyce’s agony over Will’s disappearance, but the joy she feels when any possibility of finding him is dangled before her, even in an extraordinary way. David Harbour is also very good as the local police chief, who perhaps isn’t as much of a jerk as he first appears.

There’s so much to love in Stranger Things that I just wish the big mystery behind it all felt more fully formed. A lot of crazy and cool things happen in this series and without going into specifics, as mentioned, they manifest in many ways – some that feel otherworldly, some right out of a horror film and others that include a government, scientific conspiracy (Matthew Modine is pretty much channeling Peter Coyote’s role in E.T. to represent this aspect). A lot of these sequences are hugely effective in and of itself, but it never really comes together in a satisfying manner and the how and why of it all is very murky, even by the end.

I wouldn't call this just style over substance though. The overall mood and atmosphere of Stranger Things is so strong, and the characters and their interactions so engaging, that the series remains captivating throughout, even while the actual mythology is less focused.The love for the works of Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter and Stephen King (among others) is impossible not to feel watching Stranger Things and if you share in that love, this show has a lot to grab you from the start. The Duffer Brothers have done a rather amazing job of combining the differing tones of the likes of Spielberg and Carpenter and making it all feel at home