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The new Netflix series Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is being touted as the Duffer Brothers’ first project since Stranger Things, but the show is more the vision of Haley Z. Boston, who has worked on shows like Hunters. But are there touches of the Duffers’ magic on the show?
SOMETHING VERY BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: In a darkened house, a woman in a wedding dress walks into an atrium, where the wedding is taking place. Her groom pulls back her veil, then puts on her ring. Then she flashes to everything that happened up until that moment. Then we hear screams.
The Gist: We flash to Rachel (Camila Morrone) and Nicky (Adam DiMarco) driving towards the forest “cabin” (it’s actually huge) that Nicky’s family owns; it’s a few days before their wedding, which will be held there. After drifting off to the point where the car almost gets into an accident, Nicky tries to keep Rachel awake by talking to her about a true crime podcast that discusses the murders committed by the founder of a local ice cream franchise. Then they banter at a roadside diner about his overbearing family and how her mother died when she was an infant.
In the pitch-black night, light snow falling, the car stops at a rest stop, where the couple finds a running car with a baby inside, by himself. Rachel takes off to get help, and finds a bar in the middle of nowhere; it’s as dark inside the bar as it is outside. She goes to the bathroom and sees a man peering down from outside the stall. Then she stabs the same man in the hand with her keys; he just pulls the key out and says to her, “Are you sure he’s the one?”
The creepiness doesn’t end when they get to the cabin, and Rachel meets Nicky’s older brother Jules (Jeff Wilbusch), his wife Nell (Karla Crome) and Nicky’s younger sister Portia (Gus Birney). Portia immediately launches into the story about the “Sorry Man,” whom Jules encountered when he was a kid, a story that Nicky isn’t sure ever happened. Then, as she wanders into the atrium later that night, Rachel meets Nicky’s parents, Victoria (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Boris (Ted Levine).
Photo; COURTESY OF NETFLIXWhat Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Haley Z. Boston, with The Duffer Brothers serving as executive producers, has elements of the Duffers’ Stranger Things, married to more mature, intense series like The Haunting Of Hill House or Them.
Our Take: Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is supposed to be a slow-burn of a horror series, with Rachel sensing things are going to go very wrong at some point either before or during her wedding to Nicky. And while there are a lot of strange things going on around Rachel, from Nicky’s strange family to the various examples of taxidermy around the house — including two family dogs! — Rachel’s paranoia is the centerpiece of this story.
This means that Camila Morrone has to carry a lot of the fear load, as it were, and she does a good job with it. It helps that she’s a charmer, and is able to project some of the damage in Rachel’s history without being too obvious about it. Rachel projects an artsy confidence about her, which is why someone like Nicky is so smitten with her. But we also know that there is a lot of emotional baggage right under the surface with her, and it comes out in these visions and paranoias.
Aside from Morrone, though, the series is annoying in a lot of ways. For one, it seems to think that banter between Rachel and Nicky is sufficient to establish their relationship, instead of showing them in more genuine, intimate moments. Perhaps we’ll see them in flashback, but now that the couple is in the crucible that is Nicky’s family cabin, the weirdness of his family will likely take over.
There just seems to be a lot of weirdness for weirdness’ sake, but nothing that feels genuinely scary or even creepy. Portia seems like a bit of a flighty type, but then she launches in to the Sorry Man story minutes after meeting Rachel, though we’re unsure of why.
What we feel is going to happen is that Rachel is going to see and hear things, there will be lots of music with rising tension, creepy needle drops like “You Are My Destiny”, and… not much else. It’ll be a bunch of jump scares without a story, which is something that wears viewers down after awhile.
Photo: COURTESY OF NETFLIXPerformance Worth Watching: We mentioned Morrone, and she is really the only reason why we want to keep watching after the first episode.
Sex And Skin: Rachel and Nicky have sex at the cabin, but we only see bare shoulders.
Parting Shot: In the atrium, Rachel finds one of their wedding invitations, with “DON’T MARRY HIM” scrawled on the back.
Sleeper Star: We didn’t see a lot of Leigh and Levine as Nicky’s parents in the first episode, and we’re looking forward to seeing more of them. Both know how to be compelling and terrifying at the same time.
Most Pilot-y Line: Almost the entire episode was so dark, we barely were able to see exactly what was going on. It seems like the cabin is also going to be dark, even during the day.
Our Call: SKIP IT. Camila Morrone’s compelling performance in Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen isn’t enough for us to get past the cartoonish supporting characters, the foreboding with little payoff, and a plot that just seems to consist of little more than tense moments.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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