Netflix’s elderly monster hunters are fun, but offer little novelty
Old age is often called a “second childhood.” The signs are easy to spot, increased reliance on others, the need for attention, a certain unfiltered honesty, and an emotional nakedness that age rarely bothers to conceal. The only thing separating the two is wisdom. Older people have simply seen more moonlight than the younger ones. But what happens when you take a bunch of old people, place them inside a Stranger Things-like universe, and ask them to save their friends from creatures that crawl out of ovens at night and drink brain fluid while people sleep? You get The Boroughs, unsurprisingly executive-produced by the Duffer Brothers. And while the similarities between Stranger Things and The Boroughs are impossible to ignore, what ultimately separates the two is not the premise, but the treatment. Monsters and creatures have enjoyed remarkable longevity in pop culture. It is a strange case, really. Entire living, breathing communities still struggle for meaningful representation (which they absolutely deserve), but monsters — whose existence remains wonderfully debatable — have enjoyed decades of cinematic …
