How Haley Z. Boston & the Duffer Brothers Built Paranoia in Netflix’s “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen”

Something very good is happening.

If Carrie is horror’s version of a girl blossoming into a woman,and Rosemary’s Baby is a horrific spin on first time motherhood, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen (SVBIGTH) is horror’s take on a woman becoming a wife after a very short engagement. Rachel Harkin (Camila Morrone) is getting married in five days. Together with her fiancé, Nicky Cunningham (Adam DiMarco), she embarks on a road trip to his family’s secluded vacation cabin. Seclusion is essential.

But Rachel can’t shake the dreaded feeling that something very bad is going to happen. Really bad. Really, really bad. How do you know the person you’re going to marry is truly “the one?” What if they’re not? Is this wedding jitters or something more sinister?

This is the premise of Matt and Ross Duffer’s new eight-episode show. Known for her work on Brand New Cherry Flavor and Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, this is Haley Z. Boston’s first time showrunning.

Haley and her key creatives discuss bringing her first TV show to the screen. It’s weird. Very weird and atmospheric. But mostly weird.

Haley describes the showrunning experience as: “A lot of blood, blood, and blood went into the making of this show.”

“It takes a lot of trust to get on a plane with a pilot who has never flown a plane before. So, I want to take this opportunity to thank some people for getting on the plane anyway,” she quips, referring to her cast and crew.

Producers Matt and Ross Duffer and Hilary Leavitt, were the first people to read her pilot script and see the same warped vision Haley relishes. Boston acknowledges how rare it is as a creative to have the opportunity to make something unique and personal in this industry. “I honestly can’t believe what they let me get away with.” 

“It was, three and a half years ago we read this script from Haley, and we were just blown away by the voice and the confidence that came through on the page. Then she came in and pitched us the rest of the show and it was insane,” Matt Duffer says.

“It was so crazy. The pilot is just scratching the surface of where this thing goes, and we knew, we had to get this made,” Ross adds.

Rachel Harkin (Camila Morrone) Photo courtesy of Netflix

On The Inspiration for SVBIGTH

“My parents have been in love for forty years and they have a beautiful marriage. They raised me in this wonderful, loving home, which is why I make horror,” Haley remarks about her unothodox creative choices..

She was 27, and was thinking about life and what to do next. And that question of what it means to find the right person and be with them in marriage. Since Haley often sees the world through a horror lens, creating her show in that genre made perfect sense. Boston also confessed her fear of commitment exists because she knows true love exists and doesn’t want to screw it up.

Camila Morrone, who plays Rachel, was immediately blown away by Boston’s highly original pilot. Rachel’s character was entirely on the page in a distinctive “dry, sarcastic, and smart tone.” She pictured Rachel’s character as introverted and awkward. Like many actors, Camile saw parts of herself in Rachel’s character, which further attracted her to the role. After meeting Haley to discuss the series, she felt the character was already fully-formed, so she went all in – even the parts of Rachel that weren’t her.

Adam DiMarco, who portrays fiancé Nicky, notes the chemistry that he and Camile had during the initial table reads. “We kind of clicked.” In contrast to the relatively calm Rachel, Nicky is more anxious and hectic. They found their on-screen chemistry on set.

Nicky Cunningham (Adam DiMarco) Photo courtesy of Netflix

Writing Crazy Families

Nicky’s family is undoubtedly odd. some might argue, scary. But that’s how many people describe their families. Despite that, they’re still connected.

Since the show is generally told from Rachel’s perspective, much of the horror relies on atmospheric dread, although there are a few jump scares. These create the tension and the emotion to carry the season. She’s quite cold and detached from Nicky’s family, so they found color and warmth to counter and play off of her. It relies on the dread, the tension, and the emotion to carry the story.

Haley Z Boston

The key to the series’ success is creating a bold, unique world in a highly familiar situation. The world in the Cunningham cabin is very unsettling and stylized. It feels grounded, believable, and predictable to make the surprise scares work. It is basically a human tragedy with dark comedy woven through it.

The house was inspired by Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. There were corridors and coves so the the viewer never gets a sense of the exact floor plan or where they were going. Characters could see inside and outside, and sometimes miss each other. The camera was as anxious as Rachel.

Rachel is a complicated bride to be. She has a hard, perceptive shell that Nicky and his family keeps chipping away at.

Haley Boston wrote each episode. One major element in the story changed during the development process. It was originally going to be Portia’s (Gus Birney) wedding, not Rachel’s. Haley confesses that she had an “overly ambitious version” of the wedding, but decided to pare it back.

During production, Boston had many holistic and creative discussions with her colleagues to keep its unique tone on track. The audience can decide if she pulled it off.

by Staff Writer

From our in-house editorial team.