8) Poltergeist
A lot of 80s pop culture and many hit 80s movies are explicitly referenced in Stranger Things. Poltergeist – directed by Tobe Hooper and written and produced by Steven Spielberg (though some insist Spielberg, rather than Hooper, actually directed the thing as well) – is one of them. In fact, in the very first episode, Joyce gives Will tickets to see the horror classic.
The show then becomes a kind of poltergeist story itself for a few episodes, as the Byers residence turns into a ‘haunted house’ affected by the Upside Down and its monster. As in Poltergeist, the ‘house’ appears to abduct one of the child residents, and begins to bend and ‘behave’ unnaturally, with electronic appliances switching on and off at random (though this is more specifically related to the definitely-Spielberg-directed Close Encounters).