Netflix’s New Horror Series Unleashes Unrelenting Terror, Creeping Supernatural Secrets, and a Wedding Day Nightmare That Will Haunt You Long After the Credits Roll

As a horror fanatic it takes an awful lot to scare me, but a brand new series on Netflix left me so spooked I could barely move from my sofa.

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After decades spent consuming the scariest films and TV shows I could get my hands on, I have found myself desensitised to the common tropes and tactics that are often wheeled out in an effort to terrify audiences. Whether it be predictable jump scares or excessive gore, I’m no longer affected.

(L to R) Jennifer Jason Leigh as Victoria, Karla Crome as Nell in Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen

Given my passion for all things scary, I had all but exhausted Netflix’s horror library when Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen came along. Released on the platform today (March 26), the eight-episode series follows engaged couple, Rachel and Nicky, in the week leading up to their wedding.

Created by Haley Z. Boston and executive produced by the minds behind Stranger Things, the Duffer Brothers, it explores the plethora of negative emotions that arise when prepping for a wedding and the unshakeable feeling that something bad will happen once you’ve made your lifelong commitment. As someone who only recently walked down the aisle myself, my interest was certainly piqued.

The dark side of matrimony is at the heart of the eight-part series

The dark side of matrimony is at the heart of the eight-part series(Image: Netflix)

Full disclosure, I’d heard of the show’s creator before and lapped up every episode of Brand New Cherry Flavor on which she served as a writer, so I was optimistic about what was to come. Reader, I wasn’t disappointed.

The unsettling, stifling atmosphere the show creates practically leaks through the TV screen from the first episode and keeps you in a chokehold throughout. Where exactly the threat to our protagonists lies may be unclear at first, but you feel that there is a profound one coming at every turn. That in itself makes you, the viewer, feel like something very bad is indeed going to happen as the title suggests. There are no predictable tropes here to find familiarity, comfort or respite in.

It was this unsettling atmosphere that left me pinned to my sofa after binge-watching a few episodes. I’d started the show while there was still daylight outside, but the night crept up around me, leaving me sat in the dark with full body chills as the story played out.

The show stayed on my mind long after viewing too, leaving me reluctant to bid goodbye to the soft glow of the lamp on my nightstand lest something very bad happened to me too.

Camila Morrone as Rachel Harkin, Adam DiMarco as Nicky Cunningham in episode 105 of Something Very Bad is Going to Happen

Will Rachel and Nicky make it to their vows?(Image: Netflix)

There are enough layers in the plot to make an onion cry, with little details connecting up that make for an incredibly satisfying viewer experience. There are supernatural themes, serial killer themes, family tragedies and relationship dramas aplenty, with this mesh of threads keeping you on your toes as you try and gauge exactly which angle the terror will arrive from.

One detail that got me particularly excited was learning that the soundtrack was created by Colin Stetson. The composer and saxophonist has a unique, unsettling musical style that works perfectly with the scenes unfolding on screen, adding to that feeling of creeping dread. If you ever watched the film Hereditary, Stetson created the score for that too.

The less you know about Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen’s plot going in the better, so there won’t be spoilers from me. Netflix provided me with seven of the episodes in advance to write this review but the grand finale I’ll be watching with you tonight. Given how much of a masterpiece episodes one to seven have been, I have a feeling the last one will be utterly fantastic.

Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is now streaming on Netflix.