You might expect a screenwriter working in the horror genre to be relatively difficult to scare, but Haley Z. Boston, creator and executive producer of Netflix's harrowing new limited series “Something Very Bad is Going to Happen,” insists that's not the case.
“I'm afraid of everything,” Boston, 31, said during a recent Zoom conversation. “I'm afraid of horror movies, but that's why I love them so much, because they scare me. A lot of horror people are desensitized and looking for something to shake them. I'm the complete opposite. I'm scared easily.”
The easily scared (and the recently engaged) might be advised to approach Boston's new series, which premiered Thursday, with caution. A haunting fusion of the surrealism of David Lynch and the paranoia of “Rosemary's Baby,” “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” chronicles the peculiar and sinister events that unfold in the week leading up to the nuptials between the cautious Rachel (Camila Morrone) and her trusting fiancé Nicky (Adam DiMarco), supervised by Nicky's mother, Victoria (Jennifer Jason Leigh).
Faced with inexplicable truths about Nicky's family and her own past, Rachel becomes convinced that saying “I do” has the potential to be deadly, and comes to fear what might happen when she walks down the aisle.
Camila Morrone as Rachel Harkin in “Something Very Bad is Gonna Happen” on Netflix.
(Netflix)
“I had seen people at their wedding, at their vows, say, 'I never had a doubt,'” Boston said. “I wonder, 'How come you don't constantly question everything?' It seemed very natural to me to explore that idea in a horror show where doubt is the horror.”
Terror has long been a concern for Boston. The Oregon native has a tattoo of the phrase “Carrie White Burns in Hell” to commemorate her favorite movie, Brian DePalma's landmark Stephen King adaptation, “Carrie.” He distinguished himself by writing episodes of strange, atmospheric series, including Netflix's “Brand New Cherry Flavor,” a nightmarish exploration of witchcraft and cinema in 1990s Los Angeles, and “Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities,” also for Netflix.
Her installment in the Oscar-winning director's anthology series, “The Outside,” was inspired by a comic book titled “Some Other Animal's Meat” and followed the disturbing transformation a woman undergoes after purchasing a beauty cream advertised on a late-night infomercial. “It's about being an outsider and feeling different, and I identify with that,” Boston said.
Boston began writing at the age of 11 and, after watching Quentin Tarantino's “Kill Bill” as a teenager, became interested in film. “I was very captivated by the way the story was told and I love revenge stories,” he said. “That's when I started thinking, 'Is this a thing? Who wrote that? How does this all work?'”
He had considered following his parents' path and choosing a career in medicine, but during his first formal writing class at Northwestern University, he felt like he had found his calling. “I thought, 'No, this is it. This is what I want to do,'” Boston said.
“I ask myself, 'How do you not constantly question everything?'” Haley Z. Boston says of marriage. “It seemed very natural to me to explore that idea in a horror show where doubt is the horror.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
After graduating, he moved to Los Angeles, took a job in the mailroom at William Morris Endeavor, and wrote screenplays in his spare time. A high school horror movie he had written in college got him an agent. Soon after, his pilot for a “sapphic murder story” inspired by “Killing Eve” earned him 22 pitch meetings; the first was with director Sam Raimi, whose early “Evil Dead” films are beloved cult classics. “I was 24 years old and I did the scariest thing possible at the time,” Boston said. “Sometimes I think if you don't think too much about how scary it is and just go with it, it's better.”
With “Something Very Bad is Going to Happen,” Boston found himself in the position of showrunner without ever having spent any real time on a set. However, Morrone says Boston was the picture of confident professionalism throughout the shoot. “There's just a grace to her,” Morrone said. “Even if she was overwhelmed, you would never see it. These are her words and her world, and she inherently knows the character and the story so well that she could really face any question that was asked of her because it lives in her.”
The series is something deeply personal for Boston. Growing up with parents whose marriage seemed idyllic had left her struggling once she started dating, and she channeled many of her own anxieties into the show. “They've been together for 37 years or something,” Boston said of her parents. “I felt all this pressure knowing that that exists. 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 date against this 30-year marriage, which was useless.”
He came up with the premise for the series just as he turned 27, a time when more and more of his friends were starting to get married, and developed the idea while working on other projects. When Boston sat down to write the pilot episode, he knew the narrative and characters so well that it only took him two weeks to finish.
In pitching the series, he met with “Stranger Things” creators Matt and Ross Duffer, who were so impressed by his vision that they signed on to executive produce “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” through their Upside Down Pictures banner.
“Reading a page of his script, it was very clear that this is someone who has a unique voice,” Ross said. “It wasn't like anything we'd ever read before. We immediately thought, 'We have to get involved in this. We have to help make his vision come true.'”
Rachel (Camila Morrone) and Nicky (Adam DiMarco) experience peculiar and sinister events before their wedding.
(Netflix)
Matt added, “Haley has a very specific sense of humor. It's very dark, very dry, but it also feels incredibly real. Her characters talk very much like real people talk. Unfortunately, I find that weird in the scripts you read.”
The series was filmed in Toronto in January 2025 with directors Weronika Tofilska (“Baby Reindeer”), Lisa Brühlmann (“Killing Eve”) and Axelle Carolyn (“American Horror Story”) behind the camera. Boston said she and her collaborators often referenced specific films, from “The Celebration” to “Uncut Gems,” as shorthand for the tone they hoped to achieve in a given episode. “I really love a story that takes something normal and grounded and gives it a twist that throws you into a different world and makes you see things in a different way,” Boston said.
With “Something Very Bad is Going to Happen” about to raise Boston's profile in Hollywood, establishing her as one of the most exciting voices in horror, she is already planning her future and writing a film that she intends to direct. “I love the horror community, but it's still a boys' club and I really want to infiltrate it,” Boston said.
“The genre has revolved a lot around women, and studying feminist horror theory, especially in the '70s, the genre forced men to relate to women; you're seeing a woman survive, which is ultimately very powerful,” she added. “I find it interesting how many men make horror movies about women. I talked about 'Carrie'. I love that movie, but it's missing something. Same with 'Rosemary's Baby.'
“This show is a great opportunity to start my career in this genre; now I want to continue my reign of terror.”
