Who needs a Suicide Squad when there are “Stranger Things” happening?

In a summer of big, overblown, violent movie theater duds, a sweet gem of a streaming series has emerged. Meld the childlike wonder of any Steven Spielberg movie with the compelling creepiness of any Stephen King story and you have the new hit of summer — Netflix’s “Stranger Things.”

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The eight-episode series, which dropped in July, has slowly been spreading by word of mouth and social media.

Last week, Parrot Analytics ranked it as the No. 1 In-Demand Show in the U.S. for original digitals. It is the third week in a row that “Stranger Things” has ranked as the most popular digital original series, and it’s a close second in overall in-demand viewing across all platforms to “Game of Thrones.” But it is nothing like “Game of Thrones.”

The series (appropriate for teens and older) centers around kids, and is providing a comeback for Winona Ryder, who plays one of their moms.

Set in a small Indiana town in 1983, “Stranger Things” begins with the abduction of young Will (Ryder’s son, played by Noah Schnapp) as he is riding his bike home after a night of playing Dungeons & Dragons with his pals Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), and Mike (Finn Wolfhard).

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The local police chief takes up the case just as Will’s pals find a scared girl with shaved head (Millie Brown), who calls herself 11 after the tattoo on her arm.

She has special powers, which come in handy when fighting off not only whatever creature took Will, but the real-life government powers including her father, Dr. Brenner — played by Matthew Modine. He runs the local high-security Hawkins National Laboratory, a Department of Energy facility where strange things are definitely happening.

The story unfolds with all the cultural touchstones of the time — bad hair, a soundtrack of ’80s music, and wood-paneled basements.

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The show has been getting so much attention lately that the real Energy Department wrote a blog post debunking the negative portrayal of the government facility. Just so you know — there is no real Hawkins National Laboratory.

Created by Matt and Ross Duffer, who list themselves as The Duffer Brothers in the credits and who were born in the 1980s, “Stranger Things” has attracted a vocal viewership, largely because of the compelling and edge-of-your-seat story and the overall storylines that still stand up in 2016 — a mother who will stop at nothing to find her son and teens trying to figure out their place in the world — along with simple themes of bravery, ingenuity, loyalty, and lost innocence.