Stranger Things season 4 continues to captivate audiences with a lore that has become even richer thanks to the introduction of new characters. One of the most important characters that only had a few minutes of screentime but was very important to the story was Robert Englund’s Victor Creel, who is vital to the backstory of Vecna. So, who is Victor Creel in Stranger Things season 4?
Victor Creel is a psychiatric patient that was convicted for allegedly murdering his entire family in their home during the 50s. He claims that he was just the victim of a demonic haunting that killed his family. However, in truth, everything was committed by his son Henry Creel, who became Vecta.
One of the most interesting stories in Stranger Things is Victor Creel’s background, which suggests that he and his family might have been victims of a demon haunting their new home. However, the ultimate twist came at the end of the season when it was revealed that his son was responsible for everything. In that regard, let’s look at what we know about Victor Cree’s story.
Who Is Victor Creel In Stranger Things Season 4?
Stranger Things season 4 started with one of the most horrifying sights the entire series has ever seen. This happened at the end of episode 1 when a cheerleader named Chrissy was killed by the creature called Vecna, who lives in the Upside Down and torments different people using their past traumas before he ultimately kills them by snapping their limbs and sucking the life out of them.
Chrissy’s death turned into a huge investigation on the part of the cops. Of course, the main characters, led by Dustin, Steve, and Nancy, came up with their own investigation because they believed that Eddie Munson, the guy who was believed to be the one who killed Chrissy, was innocent. Of course, Nancy herself dug deeper than the other characters because she has some experience in investigative journalism.
When Nancy went to the trailer park where Eddie lived, he met Eddie’s uncle, who believed that his nephew was innocent. Eddie’s uncle also mentioned one name which he believed was responsible for killing Chrissy. That name was Victor Creel. So, who is Victor Creel?
After Nancy got that name from Eddie’s uncle and joined up with Dustin and Steve’s group, she dug deeper into the Creel case. She found out that, during the 50s, Victor Creel was charged with the murder of his entire family, as his wife and daughter were killed in the very same way that Chrissy and Nancy’s friend Fred was killed. After that, Creel was sent to a psychiatric hospital because it was believed that he was suffering from some sort of a mental illness that led him to kill his family.
Of course, Creel wasn’t just some mentally ill person. Nancy and Robin found a way to infiltrate the psychiatric hospital Creel was sent to by posing as college students that needed to talk to Creel for their thesis. After they were able to convince the head of the hospital to take them to Victor Creel, they asked him to tell them his story.
Victor Creel had just returned from World War II and was able to use some inheritance money to buy a big house where he and his wife and two children could live. However, shortly after moving to that home, they started experiencing weird events that started with animals suddenly dying in a manner that wasn’t the doing of any predator. After that, the individual members of the household started having weird nightmares and visions.
This eventually made Victor believe that they were being haunted by a demonic entity that lived in the house. Before he could do something about it, the demonic entity had killed his wife and eventually his daughter. He was about to get killed himself as his mind was taken elsewhere. However, his favorite song started playing in the background, and that was enough for him to snap out of his trance, only to wake up to the dead bodies of his children.
After that, he was taken to the psychiatric hospital, where he tried to kill himself before the orderlies prevented him from doing so. The doctors all believed him to be crazy because he still maintained that the death of his family was the work of a demonic entity.
What Happened To Victor Creel In Stranger Things Season 4?
Victor Creel’s story was quite helpful to Nancy and Robin because they realized that it was the song that he heard that allowed him to snap back to reality while he was in a trance-like state and was about to get killed by Vecna. As such, the duo radioed Steve and the other kids to let Max listen to her favorite song so that she could also escape Vecna’s curse. The song worked as Max was able to temporarily escape from Vecna. But that wasn’t the last time we saw Victor Creel.
In the very last episode of volume 1 of Stranger Things season 4, Steve, Nancy, Robin, and Eddie were trapped in the Upside Down but were able to find a way out of it with the help of Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Erica. But as soon as Nancy was about to make her way out of the Upside Down, she fell into a trance-like state similar to what the other victims of Vecna experienced.
Vecna himself spoke with Nancy about what she did when she dug into the Victor Creel case. He also allowed Nancy to learn the truth behind Vecna and Creel, as she was taken to the past in the Creel house. This coincided with Petter Ballard/One telling his origin story to Eleven, who visited her past through the help of the Nina Project.
Vecna and One revealed that they are one and the same and that they were actually Henry Creel, the son of Victor Creel himself. He was born sensitive and was able to harness the energy of a grandfather clock, which gave him the same powers that Eleven has, and he used his time in the Creel house to master his powers to the point that he used it to torment and kill animals. In time, he learned to enter the minds of other people so that he could learn more about their pasts, and that was when he found out about the awful things that his parents did in the past.
As such, Henry killed his mother and sister but no longer had enough strength to kill his father, who ended up getting framed for the murder of the entire Creel family. And that was the truth behind how Victor Creel was sent to the psychiatric hospital.
Meanwhile, as to Henry/Peter/One, he was taken to the facility of Dr. Martin Brenner, who wanted to study his powers and create more children like him. This led to Eleven and all of the other kids gaining their own telekinetic powers. And when One ended up killing everyone in the facility, Eleven confronted him and used her powers to send him to the Upside Down, where he became Vecna.
Why Is Robert Englund So Familiar?
Those who have been keeping up with horror-slasher movies will find that Victor Creel looks familiar. That’s because Creel is portrayed by Robert Englund, a legend in the horror-slasher movie genre. He played the role of the legendary Freddy Krueger, a nightmarish creature that killed people in their dreams. Englund has portrayed Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street and its many different sequels and remakes.
It is only fitting that Robert Englund played the cameo role for the older version of Victor Creel in Stranger Things 4. That’s because Vecna himself is portrayed to be somewhat similar to Freddy Krueger. As such, Vecna, who is actually Creel’s own son, is like the offspring of Freddy Krueger as well.
