Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen premieres March 26 on Netflix.
By Elazar Abrahams
Netflix has confidence in its new boldly titled limited series Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen. The comparisons being thrown around in the press materials for the show include Rosemary’s Baby and Carrie. These claims only further highlight what’s sorely missing from this horror thriller.
Those movies work because they’re tight and full of real ideas. They build dread masterfully, and while the scare-factor is key to them both, the reason they hold a special place in the canon is because they are saying something beyond “boo!” Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is the opposite experience. It’s eight hours of drawn-out nonsense that rarely adds to its central mystery and never interrogates any intention behind its characters, while still stalling simply because it has the runtime to do so.
The series, created by Haley Z. Boston and executive produced by the Duffer Brothers, follows Rachel and Nicky, an engaged couple heading into the week before their wedding. An eerie vibe sets in as the duo approaches Nicky’s family’s vacation home, the site of their nuptials. While the moody and ominous atmosphere hinting at the worst is just enough for the pilot to coast on, it quickly becomes apparent that the narrative turns are not going to pay off.
That’s quite the fundamental issue. Even if miniseries are more serialized than episodic, you still need movement and character work – the feeling that an episode earned its existence. Here, huge stretches go by where nothing new happens, or what does happen is sluggish.
When the mystery of what is haunting the couple is unraveled, the buildout of a mythology and lore is somewhat attempted, but so haphazardly. It was never compelling to begin with, but the answers just provoke more questions. Worse yet, they provoke shrugs.
The fourth episode is a bright spot, leaning heavily into a found-footage style that makes it the most effective hour of the season. It is tighter, stranger, and scarier than the other installments. Unfortunately, that’s really all there is to it.
Something very bad is indeed going to happen, and that’s you deciding to press play on this show.
I give Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen a D+.
TV and City 