My wife is properly geeking out about this show, to such an extent that she binge watched the whole season on Netflix and then watched it again with me.
It reminds me of those Stephen King stories like Stand By Me, Firestarter, It ect but as if it was directed by Spielburg because there's a definite ET feel to the show and lots of references to Goonies, ET and others but also the general feel of the kids in the show is very Spielburg esque. But some of the other things, particularly the score is a homage to John Carpenter, which is why it's so much creepier and tenser, with references to films like The Thing.
What impresses me is the level of detail they went to to get the series to feel like an 80s series/film - from the opening sequence and the fonts used (very Stephen King), to the filters, the music, cars, clothes, sets, everything made it look like this show was shot 30years ago.
It is definitely worth a watch