Grab a flashlight, bike, and a pair of binoculars to prepare for some mystifying mysteries set amongst classrooms and diners
Stranger Things Season 4 has come to an end, and wow is all we have to say. Flying cheerleaders, noble burnouts, and a black belt fighting conspiracy theorist have all stolen our hearts, and nothing can replace them. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t more underdog stories of teenage heroes lurking beneath the bleachers battling crime under strange circumstances. Coming of age while dealing with pimples and heartaches is already hard enough, add some murder and monsters on top of that, and it’s a whole different battlefield.
Sometimes we don’t know what we’re made of until we face our demons face to face. That’s what growing up is all about inStranger Things, and the kids in Hawkins battle monsters all over town while dealing with raging hormones and questioning their own identity. With inflictions of iconic coming-of-age flicks like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, all the love triangles and end-game relationships are trademarks of the genre and catnip for any fan of the Netflix original series (team Jonathan or team Steve?). If you don’t know how you’ll face another year or two without lively battles and murder mysteries amongst the classrooms and arcade, never fear, the kid detectives are here. Check out these gripping, coming-of-age mystery series to watch next.
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Craving a spooky monster that causes just as much mayhem as Vecna? Chucky has got you covered. The beloved yet feared doll is resurrected from death in the USA reboot series Chucky, and it’s a joy to watch him cause destruction along the white picket fences and rosebushes in a small, unassuming town. This time around, he’s up against a bunch of eighth graders who dedicate their lives to stopping him one way or another, and the body count piles up as Chucky continuously outwits the gang of misfits. Zachary Arthur stars as 13-year-old Jake Wheeler, an awkward outsider who recruits a slew of oddballs and queen bees to help him track down the killer and put an end to him once and for all.
If you’ve had enough of supernatural entities and slimy monsters but still want the thrill of the chase, then Outer Banks marks the spot. Taking place in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the popular vacation spot is host to teenage groups, the rich kids who’re called “Kooks,” and the local townies, “Pogues”. The series follows a group of beer drinking, juvenile delinquent Pogues as they stumble upon a treasure map that promises to lead them to gold and glory, but they run into many roadblocks along the way as others want to get their hands on the buried treasure too. Led by Chase Stokes as Pogue member John B., the cast of Pogues have an undeniable chemistry as they go on midnight adventures in a beat-up van while battling Captain Hook like figures and even an alligator or two.
Small-town blues are the worst kind of blues in Panic, a stifling Amazon Prime Video limited series set amongst the sweltering heat of summer. Everyone always dreams of escaping their small town lives for something more, but that’s easier said than done, especially when you have to fight a tiger and walk on a tightrope above a building to do so. Olivia Scott Welch (Fear Street) stars as high school grad Heather Nill, and while she’d rather be anywhere else, she seems destined to remain taking care of her little sister and drug-addicted mother at the local trailer park in Carp, Texas. But an opportunity arises when the annual game called Panic begins at the summer’s start, in which graduates can enter the dangerous contest and perform a variety of challenges with the end prize of $50,000. Adapted from the novel under the same name written by Lauren Oliver, Heather last minute joins the competition and works to uncover the identity behind the anonymous judges as the challenges get riskier and pose a threat to her and the other contestant’s safety.
If you think Hawkins is crazy, just wait til you visit the town with pep. There’s more drama in a single episode of Riverdale than most series have over the course of one season, so if it’s pure chaos that you crave, the CW teen mystery series is more than happy to deliver it. A modern, dark retelling based upon the Archie comic book series, KJ Apa stars as boy next door Archie Andrews alongside Lili Reinhart as Betty Cooper, Camila Mendes as Veronica Lodge, and Cole Sprouse as Jughead Jones. Season 1 received critical acclaim as the kids raced to solve the murder of local football star Jason Blossom, and once that wrapped up following seasons have taken a trip into the strange and mystifying. As season 6 is currently airing and dipping its toes into witchcraft and the supernatural, it’s difficult to say where its seventh and final season will end, but rest assured it will be entertaining.
A Romeo and Juliet love story with a supernatural twist, two misfit star crossed young lovers run away from their small town lives so they can finally be together. Meet June (Sorcha Groundsell) and Harry (Percelle Ascott), two British fifteen-year-olds who’ve been kept away from each other thanks to June’s overbearing father harboring a dark secret about June’s identity. Sick of their repressed, confined lives, the two run away and head towards London but unexpectedly run into problems when its revealed June possesses supernatural abilities that allow her to shift and inhibit other people’s bodies. The revelation comes after a kidnaper is sent after June courtesy of a mad scientist played by Guy Pearce, and in a scuffle, she takes over his body. Think Invasion of the Body Snatchers only with a love story squeezed in amongst the manhunts and pursuits. As the couple run towards freedom, they make several shocking discoveries about June’s true identity, and unfortunately the dark fantastical series was canceled on Netflix after one season, but works as a thrilling limited series.
If you’re sick of all the drama, try American Vandal, the wicked smart Netflix original series that serves as a funny satire on true crime. In our current culture, it seems like a cold case or unsolved mystery goes viral every day, and American Vandal uses up all the classic tropes and rounds up the usual suspects in a high school setting after someone spray paints obscene images onto various cars in the teacher’s parking lot. The series' most obvious influence is the true crime hit series Making a Murderer, and as two students film and attempt to solve the mystifying crime, resident troublemaker Dylan Maxwell (Jimmy Tatro) becomes the main suspect despite his adamant claims that he’s innocent.
The Society follows the graduating class of high school seniors in a small community who leave to attend a weekend getaway at camp only to be forced to turn around due to a terrible storm, but once they return home, they find that everyone else in town has disappeared. As panic begins to set in, the students also discover that they’re physically unable to leave town, and that something supernatural is at works. The various teens begin to split up into groups and fight for power while trying to create a successful system that allows for a happy, well-functioning society. It’s easier said than done, and as medical mishaps and murders start to occur, the teens are forced to take over roles like nurses, politicians, and detectives to ensure everyone will survive.
One of Us is Lying is based upon the best-selling novel under the same name written by Karen M. McManus and is a coming-of-age murder mystery stuffed with jocks, burnouts, nerds, prom queens, and criminals. It all begins in detention, where five kids hailing from different cliques are forced to reckon with the things they’ve done that have landed them in the library on a dreary afternoon (sound familiar?). When notorious online gossip columnist Simon (Mark McKenna) gets up to drink a cup of water from the water cooler , he quickly dies which leads the four remaining kids in the detention to become prime suspects in the murder investigation. Nate (Cooper Van Grootel), Addy (Annalisa Cochrane), Bronwyn (Marianly Tejada), and Cooper (Chibuikem Uche) all band together to prove their innocence while also harboring secrets of their own, and the critically acclaimed series will officially be back for more with a season 2 in the works.
Locke and Key carries many of the same elements that Stranger Things has. It’s family-friendly but also has true elements of terror with dazzling special effects and some not-so-nice monsters. Darby Stanchfield (Scandal) stars as Nina Locke, a recent widow who moves with her three children to her dead husband’s childhood home, known as Keyhouse. The estate proves to be a magical place and is host to various mind-bending portals that can be unlocked with various keys. As the three children, portrayed by Emilia Jones, Connor Jessup, and Jackson Robert Scott, discover the magic the house contains, they plunge deeper into the unknown while sinister outside forces seek to steal the various keys away and seize control over the house.
Scream is a bloody good time for anyone who thirsts for a slasher movie sliced up into 40-minute episodes. The MTV series is based upon the Scream film franchise series, and is set in the small town of Lakewood, a place where a brutal murder brings about waves of violence and more death. The series takes clear inspiration from its beloved source material and introduces various scream queens, ghost-masked serial killers, and teenage hormones into the fold. Willa Fitzgerald stars as the final girl Emma Duval, and she becomes the serial killer’s number one target as he slaughters students and teachers while toying with her over a phone call or two.
The CW fantasy series The Secret Circle had all the ingredients to become a mega smash for the network but instead crashed and burned when the network abruptly canceled it after one season. The series follows teenager Cassie Blake (Britt Robertson) in the wake of her mother’s murder when she moves back to her hometown of Chance Harbor, a magical place where she discovers she’s a powerful witch. She joins a high school coven of other cunning witches, and love triangles are born while evil men flock to town once Cassie begins channeling her power. The series had a devoted fan base, but the network canceled it due to a dip in ratings and difficult shootings though many wished it would continue. It gave Phoebe Tonkin and Chris Zylka their breakout roles as two mischievous, criminal leaning townies, and it’s easy to imagine that The Secret Circle could have become another The Vampire Diaries sensation for The CW if they’d stuck with it.
If you want strange, Hemlock Grove will give you strange. Eli Roth (Hostel) executive produces and directs the first episode, and the master of gore has got a very specific taste for the grotesque and disturbed. Think of a juicer, weirder dark take on Twilight with moody vampires and werewolves partaking in scandalous love affairs amongst science classrooms. Set in Hemlock Grove and primarily following teens at the local high school, a brutal murder of a fellow student kicks off the horror series. The series gave Bill Skarsgård his breakout role as rich kid Roman Godfrey, another wicked supernatural creature that served as the perfect precursor to his performance as the iconic monster, Pennywise the Clown, in Stephen King’s It. Roman befriends new kid in town Peter Rumancek (Landon Liboiron) who also shields his supernatural abilities, and together they investigate the murder amongst haunted woods and drama filled hallways.
The legend of a teenaged wolf boy wandering his school hallways began in 1985 with the classic horror comedy film Teen Wolf starring Michael J. Fox as a blossoming werewolf with little control over his hormones or emotions. As he strives to lead his basketball team to victory, he also struggles to win over the girl of his dreams thanks to unexpected transformations under the full moon. The MTV series Teen Wolf is a bold retelling of the film and keeps all its trademark humor and growing pains intact while sprucing it up with more danger and trading in basketballs for lacrosse balls. Tyler Posey stars as blossoming werewolf Scott McCall, and his best friend Stiles Stilinski (Dylan O’Brien) aids and abets him as they become vigilantes for justice while stammering around their crushes at school. It’s a fun, supernatural series with some truly unique monsters, and the popular series is getting a sequel movie with all the major players coming back besides O’Brien as Stiles.
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Speaking of remakes, the 90s cult classic horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer starring Jennifer Love Hewitt gets a glossy makeover 2021 edition with the Amazon Prime Video series of the same name. Dripping in drama and lots of sparkly eyeshadow, a couple of popular kids in the small town of Wai Huna, Hawaii, begin to receive threatening messages of blackmail a year after they were involved in a hit-and-run accident on the night of their high school graduation. If you crave pure horror with some meta pop culture references and Euphoria like characters, I Know What You Did Last Summer showcases the various actors scream-queen making performances as their hunted down by a sadistic killer thirsty for vengeance.
Nancy Drew is the ultimate kid detective. She’s a pop culture icon, and the many Nancy Drew mystery novels have been passed down from generation to generation as she’s proved to be as cunning as she is brave. In the CW series, Nancy (Kennedy McMann) has grown up a bit, but she hasn’t outgrown her love for solving crimes. While attending college, Nancy’s mother unexpectedly dies which derails her entire life and forces her to return to her hometown of Horseshoe Bay, Massachusetts. Once there, she swears off mysteries and works at the local diner where she once again finds herself at the center of a murder investigation when a socialite is killed. She becomes a prime suspect along with the four other kids who work at the diner, and together, they work to solve the case and clear their names while facing spooky ghost stories and hometown crooks.
Here's our interview with the cast of National Treasure: Edge of History, which looks to be the next great series following a group of teen detectives.
Rebecca Schriesheim is a Resource Freelance Writer for Collider. She's a graduate of DePaul University where she studied Cinema and Media, and currently resides in the Chicago-land area. In her free time, she can be found hanging out with her two dogs, baking cupcakes, playing the piano, and drinking copious amounts of coffee.
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