SPOILER WARNING: This feature touches on some plot details from later in the series. We’ve tried to make them as vague as possible, but still proceed with caution if you haven’t started the show yet...
For their first post-Stranger Things production, the Duffer Brothers have helped bring writer Haley Z. Boston’s Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen to the screen. With their involvement, the first time Creator-and-Showrunner was given complete creative freedom – well, almost.
“Because it was my first time as a showrunner on something I’d written, I didn’t immediately realise that there would be limitations”, Boston told Zavvi. “I was just going to keep making the big and bold decisions until someone tried to stop me, and I was fortunate that the Duffers were supporting my vision and helping Netflix buy into this crazy idea.
“The only thing I got pushback on was a scene with a severed toe later in the series, and Netflix were suggesting I make that more grounded, maybe change it to a tooth or just a toenail. I really fought for it though, as the final episode was even more extreme – and as this debate was continuing, I actually got a tattoo of the severed toe.
“Netflix told me it was the most creative way anybody’s ever fought one of their notes, getting it permanently on their body!”
Making Art Out Of Anxiety
Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is the story of Rachel (Camila Morrone) and Nicky (Adam DiMarco), a couple just days away from marriage. Rachel is visiting Nicky’s family for the first time ahead of the ceremony – her fear of flying has put that off multiple times before – and even before arriving, something feels wrong.
Episode one sees the pair find an abandoned baby in a car, and the surreal occurrences which test her perception of their relationship don’t let up once they arrive at Nicky’s family home. I’m not going to elaborate too much as a mid-season development completely transforms the premise, although it does still stay true to its title: something very bad does happen in the finale.
Boston is fortunate that none of the family drama in her series is remotely autobiographical – quite the opposite, as she’s from a loving family home, and if anything, is channelling her own anxieties imagining her parents getting divorced. However, at a young age, her mom told her that if she married the wrong person, it would ruin her for life, which is where the idea for the supernatural horror began.
“Some of these anxieties I share, and Rachel is the embodiment of that fear and dread. But she comes from an opposite place to me; she didn’t know her mother, and had a tortured relationship with her father, so she grew up always expecting something bad to happen.
“I’m far more like Nicky, although both characters represent different parts of me. He grew up in a family where marriage is the ideal, and personally, if I found out my parents’ marriage wasn’t what I thought, I’d have an identity crisis, as that’s one of the most secure things in my life – I relate to Nicky from that philosophical perspective, and Rachel from an anxiety one, and it’s fun having those two sides at war.”
Biggest Horror Influences
Boston was influenced by a wide range of horror movies, with explicit nods to The Evil Dead and Drag Me To Hell by the explosive finale. But there were two films in particular which shaped her unconventional examination of womanhood.
“Rachel is interesting as a character because she always feels like she’s living in a horror movie, so she clues into the same things a horror fan would, without being too self-referential. Carrie and Rosemary’s Baby were my two biggest inspirations as those are stories about women going through significant life changes, and the horror genre externalises their anxieties.
“For Rachel, she has dread going into these wedding traditions, which made it exciting for me to take a positive event and throw all this horror at it. However, it wouldn’t work if you didn’t buy into that relationship and see truth in it, so it was important for me to be looking at grounded relationship stories as well.
“I was influenced by Who’s Afraid of Viriginia Woolf, Shiva Baby, this great British movie All My Friends Hate Me, and the big argument scene in Anatomy of a Fall. Those are all stories about romantic relationships or friendships which are beginning to feel weird in one way or another, but you still believe in them to begin with.”
Boston compiled an extensive Letterboxd list of must-see horror movies for the cast, which proved invaluable to her lead actress. Camila Morrone was more of a casual horror fan before landing the role of Rachel, but had previously been too daunted by the challenges that would arise from leading one.
She told Zavvi: “No performance was a direct influence, but I watched everything Haley sent on her list; I saw Carrie for the first time in preparation. She’s an educated and knowledgeable fan, and some of the smaller, lesser-known titles were the ones I loved the most and left me feeling inspired about the possibilities of the genre.
“I’ve stayed away from horror just because I’d look at these actresses and saw how challenging it would be to imagine such high stakes and then sustain it for a full film. How do you get there emotionally, or imagine something so far from your personal experiences?
“I’ve always thought that the creme de la creme of acting is being able to lead a horror in that way.”
A Pressure Cooker That Explodes
Even on a personal level, Morrone didn’t share the same headspace as her character; she doesn’t have the same anxieties when it comes to marriage.
“My parents divorced when I was seven and neither of them remarried, so in many ways I’ve had an outsider perspective that’s different to Haley’s - love happens, sometimes it breaks, but life goes on even if you do divorce! I’ve never had the romanticised feeling that you only have one person for life.
“What I do love about this relationship in the series is that they do still love each other through the conflict, that the adoration is still there even as they struggle to communicate. And ultimately, about 90% of brides would be feeling the same way as Rachel on the weeks leading up to their wedding if it was framed as the only chance to pick their soulmate, and it’s already a pressure cooker environment.”
That pressure cooker explodes in the finale, which I won’t spoil beyond reminding you that the title is a warning. It was the ultimate test of Morrone’s ability to ground the most over-the-top aspects of the horror genre, and the thought of shooting it was eating away at her throughout the production.
“Calling it a highlight to shoot would be generous, there was so much anxiety about shooting it. When we started filming, we knew episode eight would be like climbing Everest, as it was going to force me into a place I had never gone before emotionally, and I even stopped reading the new drafts that were being sent in the weeks leading up to it, as I just couldn’t force myself into that headspace yet.
“We were still shooting scenes from the episodes before, and it can be challenging in a series like this to keep track of where you are in the story, and what your character has and hasn’t experienced. But we knew where everything was for episode eight – we were just avoiding talking about it.
“By the end, we were physically at the end of our rope, and by the time we wrapped it felt like we’d finished the last sprint of a marathon. I think that only helped the way we played into it.”
The Groom-to-Be
The dynamic between the central couple is established as one who thinks they’re in a horror movie, and the other who is oblivious. This meant White Lotus star DiMarco’s preparation to play Nicky looked a lot different to that of his scene partner.
“Of the 50 horror movies Haley sent us a Letterboxd list of, I only watched one or two”, he told Zavvi. “Rachel is living in a horror movie, and my character doesn’t realise he’s in one, so I watched the first film on the list – Birth – and then switched things back to Love On The Spectrum and Survivor.
“Rachel is in a dark headspace, but my character is more optimistic and positive, so I was trying to stay light in my psyche, not trying to get too bogged down by all the negative stuff!
It wasn’t until the final stretch of the shoot that DiMarco needed to get into a horror headspace, and he remains thankful that the most intense moments were saved to the end.
“Camila gave everything she had to this production, there were long days and night shoots that were very physically demanding of her, requiring her to run in the cold, screaming, at the end of her rope. On one of the final days she was in a complete daze as it had taken so much out of her, and I just remember her asking if she was needed for a specific scene – the response was, sweetie, you’re in every shot of this!
“I’m glad that we ended the shoot with the finale, because when you’re emotionally drained and have nothing left in the tank, it can be easier to play those scenes. If you do that on day one when you have loads of energy, it’s hard to buy that your character is at the end of their rope.”
The Ending – And A Dramatic Rug Pull
It’s by design that, throughout the series, Rachel and Nicky don’t interact too much. The first episode was initially written as a self-contained road movie, because when you get to episode two, they begin to spend most of their time apart, and you need to buy into the highs of this relationship as much as the impending anxiety of marriage.
“We had a married couple in the writer’s room, and we talked to them so much about their wedding”, Boston continued. “It’s a day where both parties are dragged in opposite directions and they don’t even see each other, which would only add more pressure to Rachel; how can she be certain if she’s not in the same room as her partner?
“And by design, you spend so much time with Rachel that you stop even considering Nicky’s perspective, and what he’s going through”.
There was one big horror influence which had always been the blueprint for the season finale – a fairly big spoiler lies ahead, so proceed with caution.
“I really wanted to find what I referred to as the Drag Me To Hell ending. In that movie, she does everything right, but there’s one oversight that f***s everything up, and here, that’s us not considering what’s going through Nicky’s mind.
“We’re so focused on Rachel, you are being primed to forget there’s another person going through an intense relationship story of their own!”
Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is now streaming on Netflix
