Something Very Bad Takes Far Too Long to Happen

(SeaPRwire) –   Netflix enables viewers to adjust video playback speed. I despise this function. Timing, rhythm, and length are essential elements of audiovisual narrative; certainly, you could view Gilmore Girls at reduced speed, but you’d lose the snappy exchanges that energize the series. However, while viewing Netflix’s latest horror show Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, I struggled against the impulse to increase the speed to 1.5x. By the third meandering episode, I experienced greater apprehension about the remaining five chapters than about the characters’ plights.

Haley Z. Boston created the series (which, despite imperfections, represents significant progress from her sprawling Netflix horror noir Brand New Cherry Flavor). Something marks the Duffer brothers’ first executive-produced project in the ten years since Stranger Things premiered. Yet their participation shouldn’t mislead; this isn’t family-friendly programming. Instead, it’s a series concerning family—particularly matrimony. What renders two individuals soulmates, assuming such a concept exists? In what ways do parental figures, siblings, or domestic love mythology shape our intimate partnerships? How can one truly ascertain, upon exchanging vows, that they’ve discovered their match? These might have constituted compelling concepts for horror exploration, had the series not delayed presenting them and then concealed its dearth of perceptive responses beneath numerous largely foreseeable plot turns.

The premiere begins with a unsettling nuptial ceremony. As the stunning, visibly nervous bride Rachel, portrayed by Camila Morrone, proceeds toward her devoted groom Nicky (Adam DiMarco), strained breathing nearly overpowers the musical accompaniment. Perspective shots appear filtered through Rachel’s veil fabric. A rapid sequence of the pair’s history flickers past. We detect the faintest suggestion of reluctance. Apart from the foreboding atmosphere, the proceedings remain fairly standard wedding fare. The scene shifts to a lupine entity prowling dim corridors, vacant save for a broad trail of crimson, accompanied by shrieks.

This sequence represents a flash-forward. The narrative develops across the five preceding days; when a series bears the title Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen (which, upon reflection, could describe virtually any narrative), there’s no requirement to feign that events will proceed smoothly. Rachel and Nicky travel toward his family’s countryside retreat, where they intend to hold an intimate winter ceremony. Reminiscent of DiMarco’s White Lotus role, he embodies the affectionate, pampered youngest scion of an affluent dynasty that designates their verdant forest estates as cabins. She contrasts sharply—a young female lacking familial backing and minimal history. Astute, wary, and slightly gothic, Rachel serves as viewer identification, with Morrone’s composed portrayal constituting the program’s primary strength. For Rachel, the negative energy manifests during the journey, and not merely because Nicky advocates for parenthood. (“I don’t want to be ripped apart,” she objects.) A bloody highway restroom scene and a vast, quasi-David-Lynchian tavern suggest she might be hallucinating.

Nicky’s relatives prove equally strange. Family head Victoria (a deliciously unsettling Jennifer Jason Leigh) appears mentally absent, reserving her lucid intervals for macabre discourses on romance. “Time represents an unstoppable power that will employ any means to annihilate you. In the end, it prevails,” she cautions her offspring and their companions. “Matrimony constitutes a potent fusion of spirits. It’s comparable to being stitched together.” Her vigilant doctor spouse (Ted Levine) angrily paces the lodge when not sequestered performing taxidermy. Their eldest son Jules (Jeff Wilbusch) has fought to overcome a harrowing childhood incident in the forest surrounding the property, yet now weds Nell (Karla Crome), Nicky’s tolerant former flame, and parents an inquisitive child, Jude (Sawyer Fraser). Nick and Jules’ sibling Portia presents quite the spectacle—a alternately capricious and arrogant bully rendered with wickedly bubbly brilliance by Dickinson standout Gus Birney.

The ensemble shows potential, playfully referencing conventional horror archetypes without duplicating them, and depicting affluent kin without resorting to frightening Succession tropes. (Netflix already accomplished that effectively via Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher.) Possessing eight installments to occupy, Boston might have thoroughly examined the dynamics between betrothed partners and married couples, guardians and offspring, siblings, alongside the gap between romanticized love and actual lifelong companionship. Such exploration needn’t have violated genre traditions. Rather, she delivers what could suffice for a motion picture’s character growth, devoting most of the season—particularly the initial three introductory chapters—to accumulating standard spooky ambience: startle moments, shadowy recesses, discovered-film composition, labored respiration and additional disturbing noises, abrupt crimson gushes and swift violent outbursts. The series even includes classic childhood terror material, manifested as a regional frozen custard (not ice cream!) establishment established by a maniacal murderer, its emblem depicting white soft-serve coated in nauseatingly scarlet substance. The result is a fashionable bore.

The season’s latter portion proves superior overall. The conclusion lacks revelation, in that it fails to fully articulate Something‘s perspectives on marriage, family, or transmitted viewpoints regarding either, yet remains inventive and somewhat thrilling. Figures such as Nell and Jules acquire dimensionality. Several twists succeed admirably among numerous foreseeable ones. However, these advancements generate fresh complications, diverting focus from enigmas we’ve begun to care about and dismissing them as hollow deception. Certain episodes persist, like one centered on Rachel and Nicky’s rehearsal dinner, whose content might have been addressed within a single sequence. A narrow boundary distinguishes tension from tedium. Extend a narrative moment excessively or replicate an initially frightening effect repeatedly, and you’re certain to transgress it.