Saying 'i Do' Is Supposed To Be Joyous — Unless Something Very Bad Happens

You mightiness expect a screenwriter moving successful nan scary genre to beryllium comparatively difficult to scare, but Haley Z. Boston, nan creator and executive shaper of Netflix’s harrowing caller constricted bid “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen,” insists that is not nan case.

“I’m acrophobic of everything,” Boston, 31, said during a caller Zoom conversation. “I’m acrophobic of scary movies, but that’s why I emotion them truthful much, because they scare me. A batch of scary group are desensitized and looking for thing to shingle them. I americium nan opposite. I americium easy afraid.”

The easy frightened — and nan precocious engaged — mightiness beryllium advised to attack Boston’s caller series, which premiered Thursday, pinch caution. A haunting fusion of David Lynch surrealism and “Rosemary’s Baby” paranoia, “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” traces nan peculiar and ominous events that unfold successful nan week starring up to nan nuptials betwixt wary Rachel (Camila Morrone) and trusting fiancé Nicky (Adam DiMarco), arsenic overseen by Nicky’s mother Victoria (Jennifer Jason Leigh).

Faced pinch inexplicable truths astir Nicky’s family and her ain past, Rachel becomes convinced that saying “I do” has nan imaginable to beryllium deadly, and she comes to fearfulness what mightiness return spot erstwhile she walks down nan aisle.

Camila Morrone arsenic Rachel Harkin successful Netflix’s “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen.”

(Netflix)

“I’d seen group successful their wedding, successful their vows, say, ‘I ne'er erstwhile had a doubt,’” Boston said. “I’m like, ‘How could you not perpetually mobility everything?’ It felt very earthy to maine to research that thought successful a scary show wherever nan uncertainty is nan horror.”

Horror has agelong been a preoccupation for Boston. The Oregon autochthonal has a tattoo of nan building “Carrie White burns successful hell” to commemorate her favourite film, Brian DePalma’s landmark Stephen King adaptation, “Carrie.” She distinguished herself penning episodes of weird, atmospheric bid including Netflix’s “Brand New Cherry Flavor,” a nightmarish exploration of witchcraft and filmmaking successful 1990s L.A., and “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities,” besides for Netflix.

Her installment successful nan Oscar-winning director’s anthology series, “The Outside,” was inspired by a comic titled “Some Other Animal’s Meat” and followed nan unnerving translator 1 female undergoes aft purchasing a beauty pick advertised connected a late-night infomercial. “It’s each astir being an outsider and emotion different, and I related to that,” Boston said.

Boston began penning astatine nan property of 11, and aft seeing Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” successful her early teens, she became willing successful filmmaking. “I was truthful taken by nan measurement that nan communicative is told, and I emotion a revenge story,” she said. “That’s erstwhile I started to think, ‘Is this something? Who wrote that? How does immoderate of this work?’”

She had considered pursuing her parents’ way and choosing a profession successful medicine, but during her first general penning people astatine Northwestern University, she felt that she’d recovered her calling. “I was like, ‘No, this is it. This is what I want to do,’” Boston said.

“I’m like, ‘How could you not perpetually mobility everything?’” Haley Z. Boston says astir marriage. “It felt very earthy to maine to research that thought successful a scary show wherever nan uncertainty is nan horror.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

After graduation, she moved to L.A., taking a occupation successful nan William Morris Endeavor mailroom and penning scripts connected her ain time. A precocious schoolhouse slasher movie she’d penned successful assemblage landed her an agent. Soon after, her aviator for a “sapphic execution story” inspired by “Killing Eve” netted her 22 transportation meetings — nan first was pinch head Sam Raimi, whose early-career “Evil Dead” movies are beloved cult classics. “I was 24, and I did nan scariest point astatine nan clip possible,” Boston said. “Sometimes I deliberation if you don’t deliberation excessively overmuch astir really terrifying it is, and you’re conscionable thrown into it, that’s better.”

With “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen,” Boston recovered herself thrown into nan position of showrunner without ever having spent immoderate existent clip connected a set. Yet Morrone says Boston was nan image of assured professionalism passim nan shoot. “There’s conscionable a grace to her,” Morrone said. “Even if she was overwhelmed, you would conscionable ne'er spot it. These are her words and her world, and she inherently knows nan characteristic and nan communicative truthful good that she could really navigate immoderate questions thrown astatine her because it lives successful her.”

The bid is thing profoundly individual for Boston. Growing up pinch parents whose matrimony seemed idyllic had near her struggling erstwhile she began dating, and she channeled galore of her ain anxieties into nan show. “They’ve been together for 37 years aliases something,” Boston said of her parents. “I felt each this unit knowing that that exists. It ever felt for illustration a curse. You person this awesome illustration of what a matrimony is, and I ever recovered myself weighing each small romanticist tryst against this 30-year matrimony — which was unhelpful.”

She deed upon nan premise for nan bid correct astir her 27th birthday, a clip erstwhile much and much of her friends began to get married, and developed nan thought while moving connected different projects. By nan clip Boston sat down to constitute nan aviator episode, she knew nan communicative and nan characters truthful good that it took her conscionable 2 weeks to finish.

Pitching nan series, she met pinch “Stranger Things” creators Matt and Ross Duffer, who were truthful impressed by her imagination that they signed connected to executive nutrient “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” done their Upside Down Pictures banner.

“From reference 1 page of her script, it became very clear that this is personification who has a very unsocial voice,” Ross said. “It was dissimilar thing we’d ever publication before. Immediately, we were like, ‘We person to beryllium progressive pinch this. We person to thief bring her imagination to life.’”

Rachel (Camila Morrone) and Nicky (Adam DiMarco) acquisition peculiar and ominous events starring up to their wedding.

(Netflix)

Matt added, “Haley has specified a circumstantial consciousness of humor. It’s very dark, very dry, but it besides feels incredibly real. Her characters talk very overmuch successful nan aforesaid measurement that existent group talk. I find that sadly uncommon successful nan scripts that you read.”

The bid was filmed successful Toronto successful January 2025 pinch board Weronika Tofilska (“Baby Reindeer”), Lisa Brühlmann (“Killing Eve”) and Axelle Carolyn (“American Horror Story”) down nan camera. Boston said she and her collaborators would often reference circumstantial films — everything from “The Celebration” to “Uncut Gems” — arsenic a shorthand for nan reside they were hoping to onslaught successful a fixed episode. “I really emotion a communicative that takes thing normal and grounded and gives 1 twist connected it that throws you into a different world and makes you spot things successful a different way,” Boston said.

With “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” poised to elevate Boston’s Hollywood profile, establishing her arsenic 1 of nan astir breathtaking voices successful horror, she’s already readying for her future, penning a movie that she intends to direct. “I emotion nan scary community, but it is still specified a boy’s club, and I really want to infiltrate it,” Boston said.

“The genre has been truthful overmuch astir women, and successful studying feminist mentation successful horror, particularly backmost successful nan ’70s, nan genre forced men to subordinate to women — you’re watching a female survive, which is yet very powerful,” she added. “I find it absorbing really galore men are making scary movies astir women. I talked astir ‘Carrie.’ I emotion that movie, but it’s missing something. Same pinch ‘Rosemary’s Baby.’

“This show is specified a awesome opportunity to statesman my profession successful this genre — now, I want to proceed my reign of terror.”