Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen TV Review: Horror series produced by The Duffer Brothers will be a huge hit

Plot: Rachel is getting married in five days. Together with her fiancé, Nicky, she embarks on a road trip to his family’s vacation home, secluded in a snowy forest, for the intimate wedding ceremony of their dreams. Which really would be so lovely, except… prone to superstition and paranoia, Rachel can’t shake the relentless feeling that something bad is going to happen. Her foreboding doubts, coupled with a series of eerie coincidences and dreadful surprises, force her to ask the question: What makes two people soulmates? And worse – what could be scarier than a lifelong commitment to the wrong person?

Review: When you put a title like Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen on your series, you’d better be prepared to live up to it. With the marketing campaign relying heavily on the name recognition of Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer andBaby Reindeer director Weronika Tofilska, Netflix wants viewers to embrace the anxiety and discomfort of a mysterious horror drama centered on an engaged couple who must deal with something sinister lurking around their upcoming nuptials. Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is an atmospheric thriller that unfolds across eight episodes and keeps the tension at a maximum, with no breathing room from the opening moments of the first episode through the shocking finale. The last time I was as entranced by a series like this from the outset was the first season of Stranger Things, followed by Mike Flanagan’sThe Haunting of Hill House. This series grabs you from the very beginning and progressively tightens its grip. I can confirm that Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen lives up to its title in the best ways possible.

Thankfully, the trailers for Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen have spoiled nothing about this series other than the eerie tone and visual style, which keep you on edge as you watch the story unfold. The first episode, set just five days before their wedding, shows Rachel Harkin (Camila Morrone) and fiancé Nicky Cunningham (Adam DiMarco) on a road trip to Nicky’s family cabin in upstate New York. The engaged couple is sweet and flirty with one another as they head towards their wedding ceremony, which will also be the first time that Rachel meets the Cunninghams. Right away, there is a sense of foreboding as Rachel experiences deja vu before the couple stumble across an abandoned baby at a rest stop. Going for help at a bar, Rachel encounters a mysterious man (Zlatko Burić). Within the first half of the opening episode, you will feel that something bad….well, you know. The series does a great job of making you question just what the hell is going on and echoes the unnerving Charlie Kaufman film I’m Thinking of Ending Things, another drama about a couple visiting the in-laws with bizarre results.

Once Rachel and Nicky arrive at the cabin, they meet their older brother, Jules (Jeff Wilbusch), and his wife, Nell (Karla Crome), and Nicky’s sister, Portia (Gus Birney). Parents Boris (Ted Levine) and Victoria (Jennifer Jason Leigh) are welcoming of the new couple, even though things still don’t feel quite right. As Rachel acclimates to the wealthy home, she begins to notice oddities in the family’s behavior and in their wedding plans that exceed what she had in mind. As Rachel’s discomfort heightens, the sense of paranoia and anxiety in the viewer shifts as well, but this is all just in the first two episodes. Just then, when you think you know what is going to happen next, Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen flips expectations on their end, and the story goes in another direction. With the entire cast doing a fantastic job of allowing you to cautiously trust or distrust their motivations, Camilla Morrone’s central performance keeps everyone other than Nicky at arm’s length as she brings some characters closer while pushing others away. It keeps the series’s feeling of uneasiness as a key central element.

Because of the timing of this review, Netflix has asked that most of the core elements of Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen remain secret to preserve the viewing experience. I highly recommend going into this series blind and watching as many episodes in one sitting as you can. The tone and feeling of Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen evolves through the early episodes, at times reminiscent of Rosemary’s Baby, Get Out, and Hereditary, but also delivering a wicked sense of humor. Once the true story at the core of the series is revealed, it alters everything you thought you knew about the story up to that point before it does it again and again. While this series is categorized as horror, it does not play by the genre’s rules or conventions; instead, it relies on a bag of tricks anchored in solid filmmaking and writing. Just when you think the series is going to be a Stepford Wives or Body Snatchers-style story, it shifts to analog horror. Just when you think you may have a jump scare coming, you instead get a long take with minimal edits that forces you to stay focused on the screen when all you want to do is look away. All of these creative filmmaking techniques amplify the horror in this series and set Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen apart from every other scary story on the air.

While executive produced by Matt and Ross Duffer through their Upside Down Pictures, Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is an original idea from showrunner Haley Z. Boston. Boston has experience with horror and the surreal, having scripted episodes of Brand New Cherry Flavor, Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, and Prime Video’s Hunters. Boston wrote the opening two episodes and the finale, along with Alex Delyle, Ben Bloea, and Alana B. Lytle, for the rest of the series. Baby Reindeer director Weronika Tofilska directed four episodes, including the opening chapters and the finale, with Lisa Bruhlmann and Axelle Carolyn on the rest of the season. Colin Stetson provides an ominous score reminiscent of his music for Hereditary and Uzumaki. The intricacy of Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen comes through in every facet of the series, including the title intro superimposed in each episode at different points in the hour-long chapters. Every moment of the series is meticulously designed from the plot twists to the austere cabin itself, and none of it is wasted.

If Jaws made people scared of the water, Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is going to scare the shit out of anyone thinking about getting married. So much of what happens in this series is magnified tension and anxiety that every newlywed experiences leading up to getting hitched, but Haley Z. Boston transforms it into a diabolical blend of satire and unabashed horror. I have not enjoyed an original series this much in a long time, and the final episode is one of the all-time great mindf*cks. Fantastic acting, solid twists, and a story that plays with the conventions of the horror genre without being overly reliant on its tropes, Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is a great example of the projects that The Duffer Brothers will be shepherding to screens. Do yourself a favor and watch this one as quickly as you can so that none of the twists are spoiled. If you are engaged to be married, this series is going to give you some serious pause, and everyone in a committed relationship may think twice about even considering tying the knot.

Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen premieres on March 26th on Netflix.