One of Stranger Things season 4’s VFX supervisors, Julien Héry, explains how and why the design of the Demogorgon was altered from season 1. After nearly 3 years since season 3, season 4 of the Duffer Brothers’ hit fantasy/ horror show was released on Netflix in 2022. The new season featured the return of fan-favorite characters from previous seasons in addition to seeing the return of the significant villain. With Hopper (David Harbour) trapped in a Soviet prison, later episodes of Stranger Things season 4 see the character forced to face off against a Demogorgon in a gladiator-like battle to the death. In contrast to season 1, which showed the monster sparingly, season 4’s Demogorgon is seen in detail as it slaughters a group of prisoners.
In a recent episode of VFX Artists React on the Corridor Crew YouTube channel, Rodeo FX’s VFX Supervisor Julien Héry, who worked on Stranger Things season 4, explains the Demogorgon’s new design. Although the creature may look mostly the same at first glance, Héry reveals that it had to be almost entirely redesigned due to the acrobatics and fighting the creature was required to do. Check out Héry’s full comment about the monster below:
“It’s an iconic character, the Demogorgon, you can’t really touch it, but we actually kind of changed 95% of it. His kind of petal flower mouth, obviously you can’t touch that but we can change everything else. The length of all of his limbs has been changed. In previous seasons it was in the dark, it was not doing that much, but now we want him to run, we want him to jump. How is he going to fight? And we basically changed all the sizes of the limbs and the heels and everything so he could do those actions. We took a lot of references from animals. A gorilla is kind of running on all fours and then rising up for the fighting using their feet or using their hands and so you look at a lot of different creatures to build one.”
Related: Why Are There No Demogorgons In The Upside Down?
Why The Demogorgon Was Different In Stranger Things Season 1
Stranger Things started as a relatively modest Netflix show before eventually becoming the cultural juggernaut that it is now. The show’s first season featured a much smaller budget, which meant the Demogorgon was actually created practically for many scenes. Despite the effectiveness of putting an actor into a functioning Demogorgon suit, certain scenes did require the monster to be created digitally. In the Stranger Things moments that did feature a CGI Demogorgon, specifically the action sequences, the creature was typically portrayed in dim lighting and was only shown on screen for short periods of time.
As Stranger Things grew in popularity, so did its budget. Season 4 was estimated to have a per-episode budget of around $30 million, which is higher than House of the Dragon and the vast majority of other TV shows. Although the budget has grown substantially, the show still retains its emphasis on practical effects. Jamie Campbell Bower’s Vecna, for example, season 4’s central villain, was created using a combination of a practical suit and visual effects. Although the Stranger Things creators clearly have a love of creating things practically when possible, the running, jumping, and fighting required from the Demogorgon during season 4’s climactic prison fight was clearly not achievable without visual effects.
Could The Demogorgon Return In Stranger Things Season 5?
Hopper pretty clearly kills the Demogorgon during their battle in the Stranger Things season 4 finale, but that doesn’t mean the creature can’t still appear in season 5. Although the one that Hopper killed, specifically, is unlikely to show up again, the show has demonstrated that more than one of the monsters exists, potentially paving the way for another one to appear down the road. That being said, with Vecna and the Mindflayer set up to be the central villains in Stranger Things season 5, it’s also possible that fans have seen the last of the Demogorgon.
Next: Why Stranger Things Season 4 Did Not Address Will’s Demogorgon Plot Hole
