Note: This story contains spoilers from “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen.”
Haley Z. Boston believes in true love. It also scares the hell out of her.
“It just felt like something I hadn’t really seen before, a horror show about the fear of commitment,” Boston told TheWrap. “It was something I was going through, so it was personal to me.”
This idea takes center stage in “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen,” a new Netflix horror miniseries created and showrun by Boston. The show follows Rachel (Camila Morrrone), who travels with her fiancé Nicky (Adam DiMarco) to his family’s secluded cabin in the days before their wedding. As her big day draws near, however, Rachel gets a sinking feeling that something very bad is, indeed, going to happen when she walks down the aisle.
It’s no accident that Rachel looks, dresses and even kind of sounds like her creator (something Morrone and the “Something Very Bad” team joked about at the premiere).
“I was going to weddings and hearing people say in their vows, ‘I never once had a doubt,’ and I hear that and I’m like ‘How? How is that possible?’” Boston said. “So it felt like there were all these feelings I had that I needed to deal with, and this is how I chose to do it.”
Rachel’s cold feet become all the more frigid as she realizes she’s at the center of a decades-long curse — one that will kill her on the day of her wedding if she doesn’t marry her soulmate. It’s a curse that’s plagued her family for generations, one that killed her own mother on the day of Rachel’s birth.
“The curse is a representation of her doubt, and something that’s been following her for her whole life — this feeling that something very bad is going to happen, and that is a marker of anxiety. The only way to defeat it basically is to believe. That’s where she ends up going.”
When Rachel does walk down the aisle in the show’s finale, Boston believes she was about to marry her soulmate. Unfortunately, Nicky chooses the worst possible moment to say he wants to call the wedding off.
“I talk about the ending, Nicky saying no at the altar, as the ‘Drag Me to Hell’ ending, because the show is so much in her POV and we’re so focused on her that we forget that Nicky is a whole other person going through his own emotional journey. They’re just missing each other. The tragedy of it is that if he hadn’t changed, everything would’ve been fine. They would’ve gotten married and that would’ve been the end of the show.”
This triggers a new branch of the curse, one that plagues Nicky’s family going forward and back — affecting the 100 extended relatives gathered for the celebration, many of whom start bleeding to death from the eyes and nose. It’s as gnarly as it sounds.
“It was our last four days of shooting that we did all the blood, and it was so fun. My directive was always ‘More blood! It’s not enough!’”
Boston hasn’t had a wedding of her own, nor had she created a show before. It felt like a similarly life-changing commitment for the filmmaker, who previously worked in the writers’ rooms for “Brand New Cherry Flavor” on Netflix and “Hunters” on Prime Video.
The filmmaker took the stage at the premiere of “Something Very Bad” at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, where she is currently programming a series of horror films — and family dramas — that influenced her show (a similar program will run at Netflix’s Paris Theater in New York). At the premiere, Boston likened herself to “a pilot who’s never flown a plane before,” thanking those who put their faith in her — including the Duffer Brothers, who served as executive producers.
“A lot of blood, blood and blood went into the making of this show,” she said at the premiere. “I probably cried on the phone to my parents, like, hundreds of times, but we don’t have to go into that.”
It’s unclear what new project Boston will pour her blood into next. But “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” gave viewers plenty to go around.
“There is an open thread, but this was so inspired by my own fear that I’m gonna need another existential fear to explore. I think we’re done with the wedding thing.”
Read our full interview below, in which Haley Z. Boston talks about the show’s big twist, the inspirations behind “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” and the meaning of true love.
I think some could call the show cynical, some could call it romantic, but I have to start by asking: Do you believe in soulmates? Do you believe in true love?
Yes, I do. I do believe in true love, and that’s why I put such a stake on marrying the right person. If you didn’t believe in that, I don’t know that you would take it so seriously. I think that the show is very romantic ultimately at the end, and it’s very hopeful. Rachel has to make the decision that’s right for her, and after everything she went through, she chooses herself, and I think that’s very satisfying for this journey.
I don’t think it means that she’s gonna be alone forever. I think she just hasn’t met the right person yet.
One of the hallmarks of horror is that it is a genre that can act as a great conduit for real feelings, real issues. Talk to me about choosing to center this show on the very real feeling of “What if the biggest decision of my life is one that’s a mistake?”
I’ve seen a lot of movies and shows about the fear of having a child, and this is like — I can’t even go there. That’s my other biggest fear. It just felt like something I hadn’t really seen before, a horror show about the fear of commitment, and it was something I was going through, so it was personal to me. To your point, yeah, the genre allows you to take all these internal feelings and externalize them. Leading up to any big commitment, you’ve gotta be full of anxiety and dread.
I was going to weddings and hearing people say in their vows, “I never once had a doubt,” and I hear that and I’m like “How? How is that possible?” So it felt like there were all these feelings I had that I needed to deal with, and this is how I chose to do it.
A staple of feminist horror and queer horror is this idea of your body not being your own, or your life not being your own — decisions being made for you. But I haven’t seen as many projects approach it in this way of “What if it’s a decision that you’re making?” but that is gonna have consequences outside of your control if you choose wrong.
Rachel’s sort of trapped in this curse and, to me, the way I kind of figured out the curse was by figuring out Rachel’s emotional journey first. If you were to take out the supernatural element, it’s really a story about a woman who’s doubting her relationship, and she ultimately needs to get to a place where she believes.
The curse is a representation of her doubt, and something that’s been following her for her whole life — this feeling that something very bad is going to happen, and that is a marker of anxiety. The only way to defeat it basically is to believe. That’s where she ends up going, and she does the right thing, ultimately.
I talk about the ending, Nicky saying no at the altar, as the “Drag Me to Hell” ending, because the show is so much in her POV and we’re so focused on her that we forget that Nicky is a whole other person going through his own emotional journey. They’re just missing each other. The tragedy of it is that if he hadn’t changed, everything would’ve been fine. They would’ve gotten married and that would’ve been the end of the show.
Do you think they would have been soulmates if they got married before he changed?
Yes, because she believed it. I’m not trying to say that I know what a soulmate is holistically, but the perspective I have on soulmates and what it means to marry the right person is you’re choosing someone who sees you for who you are.
That’s Rachel’s belief. It is about a choice. It’s not about fate. She believes that Nicky sees her. That’s the conversation they have in Episode 7, that’s what convinces her — and she’s wrong. He ends up doing something she never would’ve thought, and I think she needed to see that.
I know you wrote this with a killer pilot script, but at what point did you know that giant sequence at the wedding was where this was heading?
I knew I wanted the show to end with a bunch of people bleeding to death at a wedding. It was very early on that I knew that, so it became about how to get there. It was early on in the writers’ room that we were figuring out how do we end the how for Rachel and Nicky. I did not want them to be soulmates — that would’ve been boring — and I wanted Rachel to have agency and make her choice.
It came up in the writers’ room, “What if Nicky ends up saying no?” and that felt like an unexpected choice. He was the one who wanted to get married. Then it became about figuring out why he would do that.
I relate to Nicky and where he came from. My parents have this wonderful marriage, and someone asked me in the writers’ room, “What would make you change your mind?” and I was like, “If I found out my parents’ marriage was not what I thought, it would completely shatter my understanding of love.” That’s where that came from, and that’s how we got Nicky to ultimately say no.
And I think his reasoning is romantic! He shouldn’t have done it at the altar — that was misguided. But him saying, “No, I want to choose you every day,” that was inspired by a conversation I had with Weronika (Tofilska), the director, who told me that that’s how she views marriage. She’s not married, and she’s like, “I don’t wanna be locked into something. I want to choose the person every day,” and I was like, “That’s very romantic.”
I think there’s all these romantic pieces to both of them that kind of just don’t line up like they should, which I think makes it tragic in a delicious way.
Talk to me about shooting that big banquet sequence. I imagine, as a horror fan, that must’ve been pretty fun.
It was really fun! We shot that sequence where Rachel discovers everyone bleeding as a oner, and I think there were 23 takes. Of course, it was the 23rd take that ended up in the show.
It was our last four days of shooting that we did all the blood, and it was so fun. My directive was always “More blood! There’s not enough!”
It’s a very beautiful set to give the “Evil Dead” treatment to.
Totally.
We learn halfway through the show what’s actually going on: It’s this curse. I had a lot of conversations with people when “Weapons” was coming out about this concept in horror where something is a mystery until it isn’t and what that reveal does. Is it nerve-wracking as a storyteller to say, “OK, this is when people are gonna figure out ‘The answer,’ and I hope it works.”
Totally. I love “Weapons,” by the way. I saw that movie three times in theaters. So scary, so funny and Zach Cregger is so great at that pulling the rug out from under you.
I think what is helpful about having a mid-season twist is that you’re then armed with all this new story, so it doesn’t feel like you’re treading water. But I think the expectation from the audience — I’m not sure. We’ll see how that feels, because the first couple episodes really do feel like a different show with the red herrings with the family. I don’t want people to think it’s an evil family show, because I’ve seen that a lot. There is a lot more to it.
That fear you’re talking about, I felt that more with the ending, in terms of how Rachel’s story ends and her choice to not sacrifice herself for this family, causing all these people to die. She could’ve chosen to die and save everyone. That’s a risky move to make, for a character to make, this morally questionable decision.
I think she did the right thing. Why should she sacrifice herself for this family she just met and this man who betrayed her?
Speaking to just meeting the family, one of my favorite things about the show is how the first two episodes really play up the creepiness of the family, because we’re watching it from Rachel’s perspective. Once she learns more, the performances change, the atmosphere changes. We’re rooted so much in her psychology.
I think that’s challenging to play. Luckily, we shot Episode 2 basically first, so it allowed everyone to be in that headspace and play with Rachel having all just met for the first time. I think that really facilitated that energy, and then getting to lean into the more grounded character choices from there.
It’s interesting, I provided a list of horror movies for everyone to watch that inspired the show. Cami watched all 40 of them, and Adam was like, “I watched one.” He said that it’s because Nicky isn’t living in a horror movie — and that’s true. Nicky is just in his family’s house. I thought that was really smart, that he rejected my assignment.
I know you’re programming some movies at the Egyptian and the Paris. Could you walk me through a bit about how those influenced what you want to do here?
Yeah, I’ve talked about “Carrie” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” and the thing I love about those movies is that they follow a woman going through a major life event and all of the dread and fear and all the internal feelings that come up around that.
There’s also movies like “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” and “Birth” which take familial relationships and add a supernatural twist and just put these people in these absurd situations. I love movies like that because they kind of define human nature and how you would respond to an abnormal situation.
Movies like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” really inspired me from a relationship drama standpoint. And “You’re Next,” which is one of my favorite movies of all time — underrated. Something I love about it is that the family has such a rich dynamic that maintains while the people are hunting them, like the siblings arguing over who’s the fastest runner.
Incredible scene.
It’s so delicious. There’s a wide berth — and “Birth” — of movies that inspired different pieces of the show. I think the only thing that’s missing from it is the humor — another movie that I love and really inspired the show is “Shiva Baby” and the anxiety that she goes through at just a regular event. “The Celebration” is another one. Episode 5 was pretty directly inspired by that movie, where a big family secret comes out at a celebration.
One of the scariest things in the world is being at a party with your parents’ friends, or your partner’s parents’ friends.
Meeting your in-laws for the first time? That’s terrifying.
It’s horrible. One subgenre that you play with quite well is in Episode 4. You’re doing found footage, and I found that personally to be the scariest stretch of the show. Could you talk to me a bit about dipping into that for this backstory? It’s really quite haunting.
Thank you. I was really excited about doing that. I’m not a big fan of flashbacks. I think you have to do them really well. My favorite show of all time is “Sharp Objects,” and that show knows how to do a flashback. I was like, “They did it, I’m not gonna touch it.”
I wanted to find a way to do that in a different way, so it made sense to do a wedding video. I wanted to mirror Rachel and Nicky’s journey. Victoria (Pedretti) and Logan (Miller) are incredible in this 15-minute chunk. The VHS tape stuff was originally conceived of as something intercut with Rachel’s story, but in the edit it became so clear that that wasn’t working, and it just became so clear that we should stay in this tape. Because the performances were compelling enough, we could do that.
I think it’s really satisfying to call back to the pilot. Almost every question from the pilot gets answered in Episode 4, and we shot on real vintage cameras, which I was fortunate that Netflix let us do, and it was really fun. It felt like doing a little mini film within the show.
Haley, I can’t wait to see what you do next. Do you have any hints? Any return to this world, possibly? An anthology?
I’m not sure what the future of “Something Very Bad” is. It was conceived of as limited, you know?
There is an open thread, but this was so inspired by my own fear that I’m gonna need another existential fear to explore. I think we’re done with the wedding thing.
I want to direct, and I’m excited to write and direct my first movie. It will be a horror movie, so hopefully fans of the show will enjoy that.
