Rebecca Cook
Published November 21, 2025 12:25pm
Updated November 21, 2025 12:25pm
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This Stranger Things season is set to show the ‘most violent’ death so far (Picture: Netflix/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock)
Key Points
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- Netflix made Stranger Things cut two graphic scenes, including a $40,000 melting shot, to stay within the age rating
- The Duffer brothers aim to increase the show’s intensity as the characters and audience grow up
- Season 5 of Stranger Things premieres November 26, with its most violent death yet and episodes releasing in three parts
Stranger Things might be known for incredibly creepy scenes as ghouls escape the Upside Down, but the Netflix show is only rated at a 15 for audiences.
Although the Duffer brothers, the Stranger Things co-creating siblings, have admitted that the show does carefully tread the line of that certification, since the show’s audience is largely on the younger side.
On a couple of rare occasions, Netflix bosses have had to step in to make sure it doesn’t step over that line.
Ross Duffer has said in a new interview that they do try to ‘restrain’ themselves, but two scenes have had to be cut from the show’s four-season (and nearly five) run on the streamer.
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One scene in question involved the death of a local journalist in season three. Ross told The Times: ‘It was when Bruce was melting. His nose melts into his face and Netflix said, “Absolutely not!”’
His brother Matt, laughing, added: ‘It’s too bad because it was like a $40,000 [£30,663] shot!
The Duffer brothers said Netflix has made them cut two scenes in the past (Picture: Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock)
The show is set to wrap up its run next month (Picture: Tina Rowden/Netflix)
‘The only other shot Netflix asked to be cut was when Benny [Hammond] is killed in season one: you saw the bullet go through his head.’
But Ross went on to never that they never intended to keep the fear-factor static, instead setting out with a goal to ‘scale up’ each series as the characters and those tuning in got older – when the show premiered, the kids were supposed to be around 12.
Given that it will have taken nigh on a decade from start to finish for this show to get to air, mission accomplished!
Ross added: ‘We keep getting new audiences. Hopefully parents don’t get too mad at us.’
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Vecna was inspired by the 1984 horror classic Nightmare on Elm Street (Picture: Netflix)
But Matt also shared reassurance with them that season five – which premieres next week on November 26 – is ‘not as violent’ as season four.
That season paid plenty of homage to the 1984 horror classic Nightmare on Elm Street: villainous Vecna heavily resembled Freddy Krueger’s badly burnt body and the actor who had played him, Robert Englund, was cast as Vecna’s original victim. So it’s no wonder that season was such a fright-fest.
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Although, Matt did say there is one caveat for these season five episodes that fans are finally going to be able to see: ‘It has the most violent death of any season.’ Who could it be? We’ll certainly find out soon.
The first five minutes of the upcoming season were unveiled earlier this morning and dive into the long-gestating mystery of what happened to Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) in the Upside Down.
The final season is coming to Netflix in three parts, with volume one on November 26, volume two on Christmas Day and the finale on New Years’ Eve – and lock in for that, because it’s two hours long.
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Stranger Things season 5 premieres on November 26.
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