[This story hints at spoilers from Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen.]
Netflix’s Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is probably your next binge.
The wedding horror series comes from creator Haley Z. Boston (Brand New Cherry Flavor), the idea spun out of her own paranoia around marrying the wrong person. The eight-episode saga stars Camila Morrone (Daisy Jones & the Six) and Adam DiMarco (The White Lotus) as the engaged couple who play out Boston’s prenuptial fears. The genre-jumping thriller boasts Baby Reindeer‘s Weronika Tofilska as lead director, and it’s the first show to be executive produced by Matt and Ross Duffer following Stranger Things.
Below, in the non-spoiler first part of an interview with Boston, the Something Very Bad creator talks to The Hollywood Reporter about her inspiration behind the bloody and creepy horror series (which is getting rave reviews), casting her two leads and the biggest debates they had while hoping viewers give the show enough room to reveal itself by the end: “There was a lot of discussion about, Are we going to scare people away?“
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How did this go from a fear of yours into becoming a Netflix series?
The show is really inspired by my parents’ marriage. They have a really wonderful marriage. They’ve been together for 40 years, and they sort of unintentionally put a lot of pressure on me by showing me that true love exists. I was always weighing my romantic experiences against this sort of impossible standard. I was 27, and I had a lot of friends who were getting married. I was just thinking a lot about what makes someone the right person. What is a soulmate and does that exist? How do you know? I wanted to explore that through a horror lens. I see the world in horror. I see the bad in everything, so it just came naturally to me to follow that story through.
Can you share your relationship status? I’m curious after watching this if you are you in a relationship and how you feel about romance now?
I’m pro-romance. I have this fear of commitment — which has now been cured — so now I am in a relationship, yes. She’s only seen the pilot.
So she doesn’t know how it ends?
No.
But you are the Rachel in this story [the character played by Morrone], would you say?
I actually am Nicky [the character played by DiMarco], I would say. I know — plot twist! I identify with both of them, of course. What I identify with in Rachel is her paranoia and feeling that something bad is going to happen, and her reading into signs from the universe. Then with Nicky, though, I think his backstory — and my family is not quite that creepy, my family is much more normal! But this idea that he built his romantic identity around his parents’ relationship was very much inspired by my parents. I was thinking while we were writing the show, what is something that would completely change my world view? And it was if I found out that my parents’ marriage was not what I thought. So putting Nicky through that was something I really related to. I think his character, maybe, is going to get a bad rap for how he handles the end of the show. But I think he’s trying to do the right thing, and he’s just misguided.
Was your writers room made up of mostly pro-romance writers, people in relationships?
Everyone was married except for me, and two my writers were married to each other. That was very fun and cool, and probably a bit of couples therapy for them being in the writers room. I’m the least cynical, but it’s very interesting to hear everyone’s perspective on marriage. The show touches on this, but a lot of it does come from your parents and the kind of marriage you were raised in, which I find very interesting. Thematically, that also ties into the idea of wedding tradition. So much of it has to do with the people who came before you.
How did the Duffers get involved in this series, the first series they are executive producing not in the Stranger Things universe?
So I had written the pilot script, and I pitched it to several producers. I was really excited to pitch it to them. I was glad they were interested enough to even hear me talk about it. They loved it and they came on board. They were incredibly supportive of me stepping into the showrunner role; it was their first time producing something they didn’t create. Their goal was: We see you as creator and we want to uplift you. They gave me a lot of great advice and maybe the best thing was that I have to stand behind every creative decision I make — don’t let someone else decide where the story’s going, you really need to follow a North Star and stick to it and that’s how you’ll stay true to the story.
They are known for their love of horror and their film references, and there are so many in Something Very Bad. What were some of your inspirations, and did anything inspire from them?
Carrie is a huge one. Rosemary’s Baby. I love the way that both of those movies take a major life event and put this genre bend to it, and really externalize the internal feelings you go through with these major life events. But I was also inspired by character dramas, like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Celebration and Birth, and looking at interesting family dynamics and interpersonal relationships. Because, ultimately, the characters in the show are grounded and the emotion is grounded, and that was really important to me, especially if you’re going to watch a whole series. It’s not just about the horror. You need to be able to connect with these characters. That was something I talked about with the Duffers that I think they really excel at in Stranger Things — balancing the emotional story and whatever the horror is that these people are confronting.
How hard or easy was it to find your leads and to cast Camila Morrone and Adam DiMarco as engaged pair Rachel and Nicky?
Adam was easy. I watched his tape early. I was a fan of his already from The White Lotus. Immediately, he’s so lovable. He was so clearly this character. He signed on before he knew where Nicky was going, and he was kind of like, “Ugh, why did you do this to me [as the season goes]?” (Laughs.) But I’m a Nicky apologist, and I think he’s making the right decision for him [ultimately]. So that was easy, and Adam’s fantastic. It was harder to cast Rachel, of course, because that role requires so much. It’s a single protagonist show, so you’re watching her for a long time. I was also aware of Cami and a fan of hers from the film she did in 2018, Never Goin’ Back. She’s just so natural and authentic. The character, as originally scripted, was a little more sardonic and kind of cold, and Cami brought such a warmth to the character that immediately I was like, “Oh, people are going to want to watch her and root for her.” And then the two of them had great chemistry, so it was a no-brainer once we saw them both.
There is a lot of absurd comedy, but you said you wanted the tone to be one of underlying dread. In the beginning episodes, there is this unnerving feeling of being watched and not quite knowing what’s going on or what to believe. What was the biggest challenge with finding the show’s tone?
I love that unsettling kind of disquieting tension and dread. A lot of it came together in the edit, figuring out when to release the tension and when to play it up. The most challenging thing is that the show feels so different in the first two episodes than it does in the rest, once it settles into itself. There was a lot of discussion about, “Are we going to scare people away?” The pilot has a lot of jump scares. The second episode is really tense, and then episode three is much more of a family drama. I think there’s enough character that you’re sucked in and there’s enough humor that you want to keep watching, even if you’re not a horror fan. But it’s definitely a bold choice to play with genres so much — episode five is this fun party episode and seven is a oner. I think it’ll keep people excited in the show, but you do have to go in knowing that it’s not going to be what you expect and give it the space to unfold.
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Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is now streaming all episodes on Netflix.
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