Stranger Things: Will Byers Scene Had A Shocking Offscreen Impact – Fans Didn’t See That Twist Coming
The Duffer Brothers once lured Noah Schnapp’s mom into a dark room only to hit her with a scarily lifelike fake of her “dead” son. Keep reading to know more!
Stranger Things Creators Pulled A Twisted Prank Involving Will Byers ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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When Stranger Things premiered on Netflix in 2016, it didn’t hold back on the creepy. It had all the right ingredients for a retro-sci-fi thriller. But offscreen, things were just as deranged. The Duffer Brothers pulled off a prank so realistic it could’ve been lifted straight from the Upside Down.
Using a hyper-detailed dummy of Noah Schnapp’s character, Will Byers, the creators managed to freak out someone very close to the actor. It’s none other than Schnapp’s own mom. And the story only gets more hilarious from here.
Stranger Things Creators Prank Noah Schnapp’s Mom Brutally
The tale dates back to Season 1, when Stranger Things was just making waves for its eerie storytelling and ‘80s throwbacks. The storyline centered around the disappearance of Will Byers, who is abducted by a monster and dragged into an alternate dimension known as the Upside Down.
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40 years ago today, Will Byers disappeared in the ‘Stranger Things’ universe. pic.twitter.com/LSAPAY97N9
In episode 3, titled Holly Jolly, paramedics drag Will’s body out of the quarry, fully dressed in his last-seen outfit. It’s an emotional gut-punch, particularly for his tight-knit group of friends. But viewers soon learn that Joyce Byers, Will’s mom, isn’t buying it.
Fast forward to episode 4, The Body, where Joyce storms into the morgue, stares down the corpse, and calls it out as a fake. She checks for a birthmark and confirms her gut feeling, it’s not Will. Everyone around her thinks she’s spiraling.
But her suspicion is eventually validated when Chief Hopper does his own investigating. He slices the body open, only to find it stuffed with cotton, like a department store mannequin. That fake body, disturbingly detailed and hauntingly accurate, was the same one the Duffer Brothers decided to repurpose for a little mischief.
“We immediately took Noah’s mom aside, told her we had something to show her, and led her into a dark closet where we had propped up this frighteningly realistic corpse of her son,” Ross and Matt Duffer recalled during an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “She was startled at first, and we felt like maybe we crossed a line… But after the initial shock, she loved it. Before
long, she was taking pictures with her child’s fake corpse and texting the photos to all her friends. Yeah, Noah has a pretty cool mom.”
The Duffer Brothers will return to Netflix after ‘Stranger Things 5’ for their new series ‘SOMETHING VERY BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN.’
— Stranger Things Updates (@Updates_SThings) July 16, 2024
It’s not exactly every parent’s dream to stumble upon a replica of their kid’s dead body in a dark closet, but Schnapp’s mom took the moment like a champ. That’s probably the most Hawkins-energy thing ever. As for fans wondering when to return to Hawkins, Season 5 is set to return this November after a long break. Until then, episodes 1 through 4 are on Netflix to binge!
