Netflix’s creepy new horror will turn your stomach – from skinned dogs to abandoned babies

As unwieldy show titles go, Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is only beaten out by The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window, also on Netflix.

Neither rolls off the tongue. But in this instance, SVBIGTH (for brevity’s sake) provides its own neat plot synopsis. Although technically, more than one bad thing happens to engaged couple Nicky and Rachel, played by Adam DiMarco, who you probably last saw checking out of The White Lotus and The Night Manager femme fatale Camila Morrone.

I don’t need to tell you there’s an opening flashforward, because of course there’s an opening flashforward! This one is to their wedding, where the vibes between bride and groom are, at best, subpar. There’s also blood all over the place. 

We then rewind to see them en route to, as Nicky puts it, his ‘parents’ cabin in the woods’. If there is ever a moment to foresee that Rachel should run, it’s then. But on they go, to the cabin in the woods, where nothing bad ever happens. Except we already know that’s not the case.

From the executive producing powers of Stranger Things creators the Duffer brothers, the rest of the show unfolds with a countdown to those magical nuptials in a few days’ time.

The first episode is a masterclass in drawn-out suspense and queasy creepiness. Nicky and Rachel’s journey to said cabin (in reality, it’s a winding chalet; Nicky is from money money) becomes its own frightening odyssey.

Features include a grisly true crime podcast about a local pervert, a maggot-infested fox in a public toilet, then a peeping Tom in another one and an abandoned baby locked in a SUV.

Once they arrive at the ‘cabin’, there’s no respite. On Rachel’s first night, she hears a horror tale of someone called the Sorry Man, who lurks in the surrounding woods.

Worse yet, Nicky’s relatives are a chronic case of monster in-laws, who we see manually skin a dead pet dog to taxidermy. Unsurprisingly, they might be out to get Rachel.

This doesn’t quite convey the sheer eeriness of it all. The pitch-perfect lighting and soundtrack go a long way, as does the intermittent use of fisheye lenses and vintage home video footage (complete with yikes-inducing heavy breathing on the audio).

Rachel is plagued with that titular foreboding, compounded by deja vu that she’s been to the creepy cabin before. You’ll shout at your screen: Run! Hide! Don’t go in there!

Morrone and DiMarco deliver solid performances, managing plenty of claustrophobic close-ups that would expose lesser actors. They’re wholly believable as a loved-up couple, as well as one questioning whether they’re right for each other.

Unfortunately, that first episode’s tightly-pulled tension isn’t quite maintained through the eight-part run, as Nicky and Rachel’s classic wedding jitters turn into full-blown heebie-jeebies. 

The next best bit comes in the halfway fourth episode, when all your expectations about the Sorry Man are gruesomely upended. The standout of Netflix’s You, Victoria Pedretti, makes a welcome appearance, with as good a face for horror as you’re going to get.

This is one of many moments where SVBIGTH wrongfoots its audiences, in a whirlygirly narrative thread that will leave you just as mistrustful as Rachel is. The snag is that these hairpin turns sometimes come at the expense of logic for why characters would…do that?

Once certain theories have been debunked and the real lore unspooled (trying to spare you spoilers), the whole thing is less interesting. 

I doubt this will deter the content-hungry caterpillars paying up for Netflix, whose output has stoked our taste for the true crime and horror that this smacks of. What’s refreshing is that this is a wholly original concept.

Creator Haley Z. Boston, who wrote on Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, takes the cold feet lead-up to a wedding and aggravates it into a sardonic side-eye at the concept of soulmates, with the threat of a hereditary curse thrown in. 

SVBIGTH delivers on that titular promise and ends in a blood-soaked fever, which plays out like a panic attack. Once you’ve recovered, we should all watch out for what Boston takes on next.

Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is available to stream on Netflix.

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