Location from Stranger Things by The Duffer Brothers
A gleaming 1985 shopping mall that killed Hawkins' downtown — and concealed a secret Russian facility in its basement designed to reopen the gate to the Upside Down.
Starcourt Mall arrived in Hawkins like a glossy, air-conditioned promise — the biggest thing to happen to the town since the lab. But it was a front. Russian operatives, exploiting the thinned dimensional barrier in Hawkins, built a secret base beneath the mall housing a massive key designed to reopen the gate to the Upside Down. The mall itself became the battleground for the summer of 1985: Steve and Robin discovered the conspiracy from behind the Scoops Ahoy counter, Eleven and the Party fought the Mind Flayer's flesh monster in its corridors, and Billy Hargrove sacrificed himself in the food court to save Eleven. The 'Starcourt fire' — the official cover story — destroyed the mall and the Russian machine beneath it, but not before the gate was briefly reopened. Starcourt represents the corruption of something bright and new by something ancient and hungry.
A sprawling indoor mall drenched in '80s neon and consumerism. Bright tile floors, potted ferns, a central fountain, and stores with names like Gap, Sam Goody, Jazzercise, and Scoops Ahoy. Food court with orange plastic chairs. Skylights flooding the atrium with natural light during the day; at night, the parking lot lights hum over acres of empty asphalt. Below the public levels, accessible through hidden corridors, lies a massive Soviet-built facility with concrete walls, industrial equipment, and a machine designed to tear open the dimensional barrier. The mall burned in the 'Starcourt fire' of July 4, 1985.
Also known as: Starcourt, Starcourt Mall, the mall