Cinema Society will have a Stranger Things season one marathon at 5 p.m. Friday in Don Morris 141.

The marathon will go on until midnight, and Cinema Society will provide snacks, pizza, and drinks– ending the night with a Stranger Things-themed giveaway.

The club was founded by Ryland Mallett to engage the community through movies. Mallet saw the need for movies to be enjoyed in a community rather than alone, so he created a space in which people could gather and watch movies.  

Blaize Whitaker, junior business entrepreneurship major, from Abilene, is the current president and has been since the fall of his sophomore year.

“I try to carry on that legacy, and it’s been pretty successful,” Whitaker said.

The club has doubled its membership under his presidency. They went from 150 movie watchers to over 300.

“We’re one of the biggest clubs on campus,” Whitaker said.

At the beginning of the semester, the club officers meet to decide which movies will be screened. They choose a theme and select films that best follow it.

“I find that picking the movies early on helps a lot,” Whitaker said. “[The members] are not overwhelmed with choice when there’s just one movie playing. It gives peace to a lot of people.”

Cody Lucas, junior bible and ministry major, from Lubbock, serves as the chaplain for Cinema Society.

“This club is a really important place of media analysis,” Lucas said. “For movies, we forget sometimes that we are able to do the same level of depth and insight for it.”

While literary analysis is done in English classes, Cinema Society wants to approach films in the same way. That’s where its Tuesday small-group Chapel comes in, serving as a follow-up to the movie screened on Friday.

“We have a good opportunity to explore what the movie means,” Lucas said. “Cinema society is a really cool place to come together and think about what we’re watching and how it forms us.”

This will be the first time a whole series will be screened in one day, Whitaker said.

“This is kind of like our marquee event of the semester,” Whitaker said.

Join Cinema Society this Friday, as they step into the Upside Down together. As they put it: “Come for the nostalgia, stay for the Demogorgon.”