Speaking of Stephen King, it’s hard not to see the similarities between the kids of Hawkins and the kids of Derry, the fictional town in his novel “It.” Both are traumatized groups of kids and teens who have grown up in a town possessed by an otherworldly evil, and in episode 5, the Hawkins kids get to explore a spooky old house that’s probably some kind of haunted, just like the Derry crew. Pennywise the clown and Vecna the trauma demon have their own similarities, too, including a fondness for spiders. 

Filmmaker Andy Muschietti turned King’s novel into two films, “It” and “It Chapter Two,” in 2017 and 2019, and there are some visual ties between the Loser’s Club exploring the haunted house and what we get to see in the episode. There are some brilliantly lit shots, including the one above, and the entire sequence pays tribute to haunted house stories of all kinds, but the “It” connection is the most obvious. Finn Wolfhard is probably glad that his character is in California, because he already had to do this bit for “It,” where he plays Richie Tozier.