The Season 1 Stranger Things monster: the Demogorgon, explained
Season 1 · The monster · November 1983
The season 1 monster has no name for six episodes: it is “the thing,” a faceless silhouette that comes out of the walls, takes Will and kills Barb. The boys end up calling it the Demogorgon, after their game. Here is what it is, how it hunts, and how it dies.
The essentials
- Origin: the Upside Down, through the gate opened on November 6, 1983
- What draws him: the blood
- Victims: Will (taken), Barb, lab agents
- End: disintegrated by Eleven at the middle school
Contents
A faceless silhouette
The show only shows the monster in full in the sixth episode. Before that, it is a light that flickers, a shadow behind Barb in a photo, a hand coming out of the Byers wall. The Duffers applied the Jaws rule: the less you see it, the more it scares. When it appears, it is a humanoid more than two meters tall, with pale skin, whose head opens into five petals lined with teeth.
He comes from the Upside Down, where Eleven met him in the Void during a lab experiment. By touching him, she tore the wall between the worlds: it is through that gate, in the basement of the lab, that he crosses for the first time, on the night of November 6, 1983.
The Demogorgon T-shirt, petals open.
In the shopKids' green Demogorgon T-shirt24,90 €See the product
How he hunts
| Rule | What the season shows |
|---|---|
| Blood draws it | Barb cuts her finger on the edge of the pool; Nancy cuts herself to lure it into the trap |
| He passes through walls | He opens temporary passages in walls, trees, ceilings |
| He carries them off or eats them | Will is kept alive; Barb is killed; the agents are eaten |
| He fears fire | Nancy and Jonathan burn it at the Byers'; it flees |
The monster has no plan: it feeds. That is what sets it apart from the creatures of the later seasons, which obey a master. In 1983, the threat is animal, and the show is a monster movie.
Why Will survives and Barb does notThe show does not explain it in Season 1. You understand later that the monster “stores” some prey in the Upside Down, and that Will, hidden in Castle Byers, escaped that fate for a week.
Why "Demogorgon"
The first episode opens on a game of Dungeons & Dragons where Mike sends the Demogorgon, prince of demons, against the party. When the boys have to name the thing that took Will, they take the name back: “The Demogorgon got us.” The game's monster, with its two baboon heads, does not look like the show's; only the principle counts, naming in order to understand.
How Eleven destroys it
In the finale, the lab corners the children at middle school. The blood of the agents killed by Eleven attracts the monster, which appears, massacres Brenner's men, and finds itself facing the children. Eleven pins it against the blackboard, disintegrates it into ashes, and vanishes with it. At the Byers', at the same moment, Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve have wounded it with fire and the bat; it is the same monster, which passes from one place to another.
Season 2 will reveal that he was only the first of a species, and that a young specimen, Dart, was going to grow in Dustin's basement.
How he was made
The 1983 Demogorgon is a mix: a costume worn by a tall actor, Mark Steger, an animatronic head for the close-ups, and digital touch-ups for the petals. The Duffers wanted a “physical” creature, filmable on set, the opposite of fully CGI monsters. That is what still gives it, ten years later, its credible side.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Played by | Mark Steger, in a suit |
| Head | Animatronic, five petals |
| Size | Over two meters |
| Digital effects | Opening of the petals, passages through the walls |
The 1983 monster figure.
In the shopLego Demogorgon mini figure LG002314,90 €See the product
How the monster was designed
The Duffers wanted a monster “that could devour humans,” but anchored in science rather than the supernatural. The creature was designed by the Aaron Sims Creative studio, with one instruction: no face. The head that opens in petals, like a carnivorous flower, comes from that idea of a predator with no gaze, whose intention or emotion you cannot read.
On set, the Demogorgon is a costume worn by Mark Steger, a creature performer, completed in post-production by CGI for the head and the impossible movements. That mix explains the monster's physical presence in the contact scenes, at Steve's or in the classroom, and its supernatural fluidity when it goes through walls.
The name comes from Dungeons & Dragons: in the game, Demogorgon is a two-headed demon prince. Mike is the one who gives it, on the night of the game, before Will disappears; the children baptize the real monster after the figure they had just defeated.
Every appearance, episode by episode
-
Episode 1
The lab scientist, caught in the elevator. Then Will, in his garden shed, snatched when the bulb goes out.
-
Episode 2
Steve's pool: Barb, alone on the diving board, bleeds from a cut on her finger. The monster takes her.
-
Episode 3
Joyce sees him come out of the living-room wall. Eleven shows him to Mike in a vision, across the D&D board, like a piece turned over.
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Episode 5
Nancy follows him into the woods through a hollow tree, and discovers the Upside Down, and the deer carcass.
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Episode 6
He attacks Nancy and Jonathan in the Byers house, rigged with nails and gasoline, and leaves burned.
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Episode 8
The lab, where he kills the agents; then the middle-school classroom, where Eleven disintegrates him.
What distinguishes him from the later monsters
The 1983 Demogorgon is a lone predator. It hunts alone, drawn by blood, crosses worlds through passages it opens itself in walls and trees, and carries its prey into the Upside Down rather than devouring them on the spot. It obeys nobody: the show shows no intelligence behind it, and that is what makes the first season so close to a classic monster movie.
The later seasons change the picture. In 1984, the demodogs hunt in a pack and answer to a higher will, the giant shadow; in 1986, you learn that the Demogorgons are Upside Down creatures manipulated by Henry Creel. In retrospect, the 1983 creature was already an instrument, but Season 1 does not say so, and that is better: the faceless monster is more frightening when it has no master.
What the D&D game of the first episode says
The opening scene at the Wheelers' sums up the season without your knowing it. The Demogorgon appears on the board, Will has to choose between throwing a fireball or protecting himself, he rolls the die, the die falls, and nobody sees the result. The game stops there; the real game starts on the road home.
The Duffers said that ten-minute prologue served as a test: if the viewer accepted spending ten minutes in a basement with four kids playing, they would accept the rest. The unseen die roll is the first image of the whole show, and the last chapter answers it, eight and a half seasons later, with a new game in the same basement.
The Demogorgon keychain, in pocket format.
In the shopDemogorgon Live hoodie72,90 €See the product
TakeawayA faceless predator, out of the gate of November 6, 1983. Drawn by blood, it passes through walls between worlds. It takes Will, kills Barb and lab agents. Eleven disintegrates it at the middle school in the last episode.
Frequently asked questions
What is the monster of season 1 called?
The Demogorgon, a name given by the boys after a Dungeons & Dragons creature. The show does not name it otherwise.
What attracts the Demogorgon?
Blood. Barb is taken after cutting herself, and Nancy draws it on purpose by slitting her hand.
How does the Demogorgon die?
Eleven disintegrates him in the middle-school classroom, in the last episode, and vanishes with him.
Who plays the Demogorgon?
Mark Steger, an actor who specializes in creatures, in a suit, with an animatronic head.
Who designed the Demogorgon?
The Aaron Sims Creative studio, with the instruction not to give it a face. Mark Steger plays it in a suit on set, and the petal head is completed in CGI.
Does the Season 1 monster have a master?
Season 1 does not say it: the monster appears there as a lone predator. Season 4 then reveals that the creatures of the Upside Down are manipulated by Henry Creel.