Entertainment
Netflix’s Creepy, Mind-Bending Horror Series Is Your New Binge Obsession
“If Carrie is horror’s version of a girl becoming a woman, and Rosemary’s Baby is the horrific version of a woman becoming a mother, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is horror’s take on a woman becoming a wife.” Netflix’s synopsis of its newest horror show says it all — and really, so does the title, as Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen plays with the timeless anxieties around marrying the “right” person. It’s not necessarily a new idea by any means, with the likes of Get Out or Ready or Not demonizing the already stressful scenario of meeting the in-laws, but Haley Z. Boston‘s eight-episode limited series takes this idea to a whole new level, while executing it in a pressure-cooker of a show.
What Is ‘Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen’ About?
The week before the wedding is always a chaotic time, and that could not be truer for Rachel (Camila Morrone) and Nicky (Adam DiMarco). Kicking off six days before the fated “I Do,” the couple embarks on a road trip to Nicky’s family vacation home, covered in snow and surrounded by nothing but woods and foxes. However, on the way there, the superstitious Rachel is pummeled with an array of classic bad omens, from grisly roadkill to an abandoned baby in a car, which escalates the gnawing feeling of dread in her gut. As the title suggests, she senses that something very bad is going to happen in the days leading up to her impending nuptials.
Upon meeting Nicky’s family, Rachel’s paranoia mounts further, especially when she is plagued by suspicious looks and spooky stories about danger lurking in the woods. We meet the utterly captivating Cunningham matriarch Victoria (Jennifer Jason Leigh), her withdrawn, taxidermy-enthusiast husband Boris (Ted Levine), Nicky’s pedantic and slightly off-putting sister Portia (Gus Birney), his jaded, sarcastic brother Jules (Jeff Wilbusch), and Jules’ steely wife Nell (Karla Crome), who also happens to be Nicky’s ex-girlfriend. With such an eclectic group of people hiding their own secrets and motivations, Rachel is thrust into an isolated world of marital mayhem. And just when you think it can’t get any worse, it inevitably does.
‘Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen’ Is a Masterclass in Atmospheric Tension and Body Horror
Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is easily Netflix’s creepiest horror show since The Haunting of Hill House, with the same atmospheric terror, mind-bending reality, and scenes so gruesomely twisted they’re impossible to look away from. The story knows exactly where it’s going from the beginning, and wastes no time putting the viewer’s nerves through the wringer. Like in Mike Flanagan‘s hit show, the narrative twists and turns through red herrings that form a larger, far more terrifying web, forcing the audience to question everything. Even when the real threat is uncovered, the storytelling’s momentum never falters, and the fear of the unknown is successfully translated into another kind of reality-bending tension.
In terms of visual language, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is a masterpiece. The most striking part of the show is its cinematography, which is brilliant in its creativity and its ability to build tension through handheld cameras, disorienting angles, stalking shots, and even some found-footage segments. These are accompanied by incredibly long takes that make the mundane act of walking through a crowded house undulate with anxiety and pressure. These hair-raising shots are just as provocative and enduring as the skin-crawling scenes of body horror, ones that are just subtle enough to unsettle at a subconscious level — well, perhaps apart from the impeccably repulsive visuals in the penultimate episode’s closing sequence.
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Everything is cinched together by the precise sound design of the series, which deserves its own applause. Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen maintains its perpetual tension and suspense by applying the same creativity used in its visuals to the viewer’s auditory experience. It indulges in sharp staccato notes and electric buzzes that are just as frenetic as the atmosphere. Amid this is its frequent use of drowning out characters’ voices, bringing them in and out of focus to echo panic attacks, disorienting us just as much. Altogether, the show is ambitious in how it achieves the anxiety around weddings and delivers on its ultimate vow.
Netflix’s ‘Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen’ Is Stacked With Volatile Performances
What’s a good horror series without the most subtly twisted cast you’ve ever seen? Even though Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is mainly Rachel’s story, she is surrounded by characters who fight for the spotlight with unnerving demeanors and eccentric idiosyncrasies. No character stretches too far from the realm of realism, especially as our psychologist protagonist ruthlessly psychoanalyzes them all, yet they are all distinctly uncanny due to a combination of the cinematography and their individual performances. There are standout performances by Leigh as the overbearing, narcissistic mother, Wilbusch as the brother we surprisingly find ourselves rooting for, and Birney as the breezy sister whose high-pitched voice is as daunting as the dread in the air.
Morrone bears the weight of the lead well, even as her character’s personality can sometimes intentionally veer into grating. She plays Rachel’s paranoia and anxiety convincingly, dropping hints of it in the beginning through her deep breaths while she smokes, or the desperate glint underneath her playfulness when Nicky fails to hold his breath when they drive through a tunnel. But when the spiral begins, Morrone captivates with her wide, horrified eyes and trembling lip, making even a dress fitting feel like nightmare fuel. Even though this is a show about marriage, her chemistry with DiMarco (which is both steamy and comforting) is simply secondary to the weight Morrone gives to Rachel’s experience as a bride-to-be, dinner parties from hell and all.
Netflix’s Something Very Bad is Going to Happen transfixes the audience with the same dread that haunts the soon-to-be hallowed halls of the Cunningham vacation home. It’s such a visually stunning watch that effectively employs all the camera tricks at its disposal to tell a tale as old as time, one where the uncertainty around soulmates takes on a more sinister form. The show will leave you writhing in discomfort at every moment, whether it’s because you’re cringing at all-too-relatable interactions or are lost in the dizzying kaleidoscope of too-wide smiles and palpable fear. It’s the perfect maelstrom of white and red, where “until death do us part” means something very bad indeed.
- Release Date
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March 26, 2026
- Network
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Netflix
- Showrunner
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Haley Z. Boston
- Writers
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Haley Z. Boston
Cast
- The show is visually and acoustically ambitious and captivating, leaving an enduring impact.
- The story’s play on the theme of soulmates is clever, confident, and precise.
- The cast delivers magnetic performances, each contributing to the mind-bending reality with their own twisted flavors.
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