Vecna is back, and somehow even more nightmarish. As Stranger Things enters its final season, fans are getting their first real glimpse of the show’s ultimate villain in a new, more grotesque form, and the transformation behind it is as intense as it looks.
Season 4 introduced viewers to Henry Creel’s evolution into the horrifying Vecna, instantly recognisable by his ash-grey skin, twisted veins, skeletal build, and haunting stare. Though briefly taken down by Nancy, Robin, and Steve in the previous finale, where the trio set him ablaze, the villain re-emerges in Season 5 looking more evolved, more monstrous, and far more unsettling.
Jamie Campbell Bower revealed to Variety that bringing this revamped version of Vecna to life involved a carefully calibrated mix of prosthetics and digital enhancements. “This season was definitely more of a blend between practical and CG,” he explained. “The face is all prosthetics, the shoulders are prosthetics, and the hands are prosthetics, but everything else is a morph suit.”
One of the biggest challenges, Bower shared, was maintaining Vecna’s imposing stature even though he wasn’t fully encased in the elaborate suit used in Season 4. He specifically asked the team to help preserve the character’s physical dominance. To achieve this, the suit was engineered with “two large blocks in the side” so that his arms would naturally rest farther from his torso—subtly restoring the creature’s intimidating silhouette. “Vecna still has the presence that he had when I first stepped onto set,” Bower said, emphasising how essential that bulk was to the character.
The new suit, he added, is significantly easier to wear. Compared to the “inch and a half of foam latex” he endured during his earlier outings as Vecna, this season’s build uses only “a millimetre”, allowing for far more mobility while still delivering a chilling on-screen result.
Netflix dropped the first four episodes of the eight-part final season on Wednesday. According to fan platform Tudum, the next three episodes arrive on December 25, with the epic series finale scheduled for December 31.