Saying 'I do' is supposed to be joyous — unless something very bad happens

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

“I’m acrophobic of everything,” Boston, 31, said during a caller Zoom conversation. “I’m acrophobic of fearfulness movies, but that’s wherefore I emotion them truthful much, due to the fact that they scare me. A batch of fearfulness radical are desensitized and looking for thing to shingle them. I americium the opposite. I americium easy afraid.”

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

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

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

(Netflix)

“I’d seen radical successful their wedding, successful their vows, say, ‘I ne'er erstwhile had a doubt,’” Boston said. “I’m like, ‘How could you not perpetually question everything?’ It felt precise earthy to maine to research that thought successful a fearfulness amusement wherever the uncertainty is the horror.”

Horror has agelong been a preoccupation for Boston. The Oregon autochthonal has a tattoo of the operation “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 the Oscar-winning director’s anthology series, “The Outside,” was inspired by a comic titled “Some Other Animal’s Meat” and followed the unnerving translation 1 pistillate undergoes aft purchasing a quality pick advertised connected a late-night infomercial. “It’s each astir being an outsider and feeling different, and I related to that,” Boston said.

Boston began penning astatine the property of 11, and aft seeing Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” successful her aboriginal teens, she became funny successful filmmaking. “I was truthful taken by the mode that the 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 vocation successful medicine, but during her archetypal ceremonial penning people astatine Northwestern University, she felt that she’d recovered her calling. “I was like, ‘No, this is it. This is what I privation to do,’” Boston said.

“I’m like, ‘How could you not perpetually question everything?’” Haley Z. Boston says astir marriage. “It felt precise earthy to maine to research that thought successful a fearfulness amusement wherever the uncertainty is the horror.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

After graduation, she moved to L.A., taking a occupation successful the 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 — the archetypal was with manager Sam Raimi, whose early-career “Evil Dead” movies are beloved cult classics. “I was 24, and I did the scariest happening astatine the clip possible,” Boston said. “Sometimes I deliberation if you don’t deliberation excessively overmuch astir however 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 the presumption of showrunner without ever having spent immoderate existent clip connected a set. Yet Morrone says Boston was the representation of assured professionalism passim the 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 the quality and the communicative truthful good that she could truly navigate immoderate questions thrown astatine her due to the fact that it lives successful her.”

The bid is thing profoundly idiosyncratic for Boston. Growing up with parents whose matrimony seemed idyllic had near her struggling erstwhile she began dating, and she channeled galore of her ain anxieties into the show. “They’ve been unneurotic for 37 years oregon something,” Boston said of her parents. “I felt each this unit knowing that that exists. It ever felt similar a curse. You person this large 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 the premise for the bid close astir her 27th birthday, a clip erstwhile much and much of her friends began to get married, and developed the thought portion moving connected different projects. By the clip Boston sat down to constitute the aviator episode, she knew the communicative and the characters truthful good that it took her conscionable 2 weeks to finish.

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

“From speechmaking 1 leafage of her script, it became precise wide that this is idiosyncratic who has a precise unsocial voice,” Ross said. “It was dissimilar thing we’d ever work before. Immediately, we were like, ‘We person to beryllium progressive with this. We person to assistance bring her imaginativeness 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 precise dark, precise dry, but it besides feels incredibly real. Her characters speech precise overmuch successful the aforesaid mode that existent radical talk. I find that sadly uncommon successful the scripts that you read.”

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

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

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

“This amusement is specified a large accidental to statesman my vocation successful this genre — now, I privation to proceed my reign of terror.”