Stranger Things: Tales from '85's trailer unleashes a mutant Demogorgon

1 week ago 3

Published Feb 2, 2026, 9:01 AM EST

A teaser for the animated midquel’s reveals some twisted new monsters

While the final season of Stranger Things revealed the origins of the Upside Down and the connection between Vecna and the Mind Flayer, it left plenty of questions unanswered about the monsters that plagued Hawkins, Indiana. The first teaser trailer for the animated midquel Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 looks to be further developing the nature of Demogorgons, showing a dangerous organism that mutates into many different forms.

Set between the events of seasons 2 and 3 of the Netflix show, Tales from ‘85 premieres on April 23, and it will use the style of a Saturday morning cartoon to offer the same mix of nostalgic fun and horror as the core series. The trailer shows Hopper (Brett Gipson) threatening a nervous Mike (Luca Diaz) when he picks up Eleven (Brooklyn Davey Norstedt) for a day of winter fun. But their plans for flirting, snowball fights, and starting a Dungeons & Dragons campaign are interrupted by the appearance of a new threat.

The trailer shows a lizard-like creature with a Demogorgon-style mouth being pursued by someone wearing a hazmat suit and flamethrower, indicating it probably escaped from containment somewhere. But as the kids track it, they learn that it’s mutating. A version is seen using a pumpkin as a head to create an extremely toothy jack-o-lantern, and its long claws are on full display when it stalks the halls of Hawkins High School. The kids are also threatened with toothy vines, face a giant viney maw in the woods, and fight a hulking creature that’s more reminiscent of a warped bear or wolf.

Hawkins may be under attack by something from the Abyss that was experimented on in a way that made it more prone to mutation. But the creature could also be evidence that the extradimensional monsters rapidly evolve to suit their environment. Demogorgons undergo multiple metamorphoses to reach their adult form, something Dustin learned the hard way when he adopted a very young one. The monsters in Tales of ‘85 seem to have a similarly complex lifecycle shaped by local plants and animals.

Eric Robles (Fanboy & Chum Chum, Glitch Techs) serves as showrunner for Tales from ‘85, with Flying Bark Productions (What If…?) handling the animation and the Duffer Brothers executive producing. The series premieres on Netflix on April 23.

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