The chilling new Netflix horror series Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen finds its terrifying premise in a surprisingly relatable source: the creator's deep-seated anxiety about lifelong commitment.
Haley Z. Boston, the show's creator, revealed that her mother's advice from childhood—"You just need to make sure you don’t marry the wrong person"—became the psychological foundation for the series. "The show is about the fear of marrying the wrong person," Boston told Netflix's Tudum.
That fear was amplified by her own parents' enduring 37-year marriage, which Boston described as both inspiring and burdensome. "I felt all this pressure knowing that exists," she explained to the Los Angeles Times. "It always felt like a curse. You have this great example of what a marriage is, and I always found myself weighing every little romantic tryst against this 30-year marriage—which was unhelpful."
Boston conceived the series at age 27 while watching friends get married. "As I was approaching 30, so many people I knew were getting married," she told Variety. "It felt like we were all too young to be doing that. The idea of making that lifelong commitment and the fear associated with that made natural sense to me to explore in a horror lens."
The genre proved the perfect vehicle for externalizing internal anxieties. "It allows you to take all these internal feelings and externalize them," Boston told The Wrap, noting that horror about commitment fear was "something I hadn't really seen before."
In the series, protagonist Rachel (Camila Morrone) arrives at her fiancé Nicky's (Adam DiMarco) family estate for their wedding, only to encounter increasingly disturbing signs that something is terribly wrong. From a missing wedding dress to a remote mansion that feels more like a trap than a venue, Rachel's suspicions grow while those around her dismiss her concerns.
"I think from the moment she arrives, everything starts to feel off," Morrone told Glamour. "There’s a lot of gaslighting happening. She’s trying to trust herself, but she’s constantly being told that she’s wrong."
Boston's personal journey from anxiety to artistic creation demonstrates how universal fears can transform into compelling storytelling. Now 31, she channeled what she once called "a curse" into a horror narrative that resonates with anyone who's ever questioned whether they're making the right lifelong choice.