Danny Jarabek
Haley Z. Boston has a background in writing horror across Brand New Cherry Flavor and Cabinet of Curiosities, but when writing the pilot for Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen all the way back in 2021, she could not have imagined the very good things that were going to happen when the show began production through Netflix and the Duffer Brothers as producers. By the end of shooting Episode Eight and walking around a blood-soaked set, she began to realize the accomplishment of the cast and crew to bring this story to life. Her MO through the whole process: “more blood.”
The series follows Rachel (Camila Morrone), a woman traveling with her fiance Nicky (Adam DiMarco) to his remote family home for their wedding, where a growing sense of dread begins to emerge into something dangerous. Boston built the show from a personal place, mapping Rachel’s emotional interior, and then constructing a narrative that could complement that journey. Awards Radar spoke with Boston about the horror genre she loves and fears in equal measure, how her vision evolved over time, and why, after everything Nicky does, she is still an apologist for his character.
Read our full conversation with creator/showrunner Haley Z. Boston below.
The show has been out for over a month now on Netflix. What has it been like seeing the reactions?
Haley Z. Boston: It is really insane, because when I was making the show I never thought about it in terms of people watching it. I thought about the audience as we were making it, of course, but I assumed we would finish it and that would be it, I would be done. I have seen people making fan edits on TikTok. I try not to actively look for any of that, but it is exciting to see people responding to the story and the characters. I still have not had the pleasure of overhearing a stranger talk about the show in public, but my brother has. He texted me saying people at a pizza shop were talking about my show, and I thought that was so cool.
You have past writing experience in the horror space with things like Cabinet of Curiosities and Brand New Cherry Flavor. What did you take from those experiences into this series?
Haley Z. Boston: Brand New Cherry Flavor has a really niche audience, but more and more people have been bringing it up to me lately and saying they are fans, which is very gratifying. That was my first writing job. I was an assistant at the time, and I am really grateful to the showrunners Nick [Antosca] and Lenore [Zion] for taking a chance on me and seeing my potential. I learned so much from that experience, even just from a running-a-writers-room standpoint. The big thing about horror in television is that it is really hard to sustain. You have to switch it up and bring in new subgenres. Something I took from watching the first season of Servant is how well it plays with audience expectation. That show keeps the ball hidden for a long time, keeping you guessing about whether what is happening is supernatural or in someone’s head. That was something I wanted to do with this. And I wanted to make sure I was not doing horror just for the sake of it. Every genre element needed to relate to Rachel’s emotional journey. I started by mapping that out and then figured out how the curse could complement her emotional story.
I feel really excited by horror right now. There is so much happening in the genre.
Haley Z. Boston: It is insane. I love horror. It is my favorite genre. I am really excited to see Hokum, it looks terrifying. I watched Oddity somewhat recently on a laptop with headphones in, and there was a thunderstorm outside, and I had to pause it several times. The setup of that movie is so scary. I am easily scared, which is honestly part of why I love the genre so much. I thought Weapons was terrifying and amazing. Arkasha Stevenson is making a movie that I believe is about a bachelor party, and I do not know anything else about it, but she is really cool and I am very excited about whatever it is.
That idea of hiding the ball applies so well to Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, especially in those first couple of episodes. What was your thought process around the slow release of information?
Haley Z. Boston: The original version of the show that I sold did not have a curse at all. I knew how I wanted it to end, and it was really focused on the dread and the feeling of uncertainty that comes with making a huge commitment. Once we figured out that the curse would give us a stronger narrative thrust, I knew I wanted to reveal it at the midpoint. So the question became what is happening before that reveal, while still making sure the curse does not come out of nowhere? The answer was to lean into Rachel’s feelings. She feels like something bad is going to happen. There is this point of view following her. My job was to make the audience understand that she is right and that is why she has this feeling. That was my North Star. As long as the audience is feeling what Rachel is feeling, they stay with her. When the family is being creepy and this point of view is introduced, you should not be asking why she is not just leaving. And to that criticism I will say, “she tried!” She literally got in the car and tried to leave.
We also talked about each episode with a specific movie comp in mind to keep things from feeling repetitive. The first episode is quite Lynchian. The second we discussed in terms of Rosemary’s Baby. Episode Three plays like a home invasion movie. Episode Four is a found footage movie. Then the curse is introduced and it shifts into a classic curse narrative where you are trying to figure out how to stop it, with the horror taking a bit of a back seat before we hit you with the gore at the end.
Behind all of this is a wedding and the question of whether you are with the right person. Where did that come from for you personally?
Haley Z. Boston: It comes from my relationship to my parents’ marriage. They have this really beautiful marriage, and when I was a kid my mom told me, “Just make sure you do not marry the wrong person, it could ruin your life.” I was ten years old. That stuck with me for a long time. I always said it was like a curse that my parents have this perfect marriage. I wanted Rachel to not come from that background, to be someone a little more cynical about marriage, while Nicky carries this romantic ideal. When you put two people together with genuinely conflicting perceptions of what marriage and love mean, what happens? I have also always said that I am more Nicky than Rachel. I am a Nicky apologist. I think he was just trying to do the right thing.
I love the idea that a comment to a ten year old can be internalized and turned into a horror television series all these years later. You also had the Duffer Brothers involved as producers. What was that collaboration like as you developed the show from script to screen?
Haley Z. Boston: They came on board once I had already written the pilot script, and we took it to Netflix together. I am a fan of Stranger Things and have been since I watched all of Season One in one sitting with my brother and his friends, which felt very fitting for that show. I was Joyce for Halloween that year. I am really grateful that they saw me as someone like them when they were my age making Stranger Things, and they were there to make sure I was supported in making the show I wanted to make. That is the ideal thing for a producer to be. They were not enforcing any creative decisions. They were there to mentor and support me. They were deep in Stranger Things season five while I was writing this show, but they read drafts and watched cuts and were always available when I needed anything.
That’s an amazing overlap given the scale and scope of everything going on with Stranger Things Season Five.
Haley Z. Boston: They were based in Atlanta, so I was running the room in their office, and they would come back every once in a while and I would say, “What are you doing in my office?” I had completely taken over the space and was very confident about it.
What was it like watching the cast bring the show to life?
Haley Z. Boston: It was surreal. I was a fan of Camila’s from Never Goin’ Back, and I actually wrote her name down as someone I wanted to work with back in 2018. When she taped for the show I was immediately impressed by how naturally she inhabited the character. It was crucial that we believe Rachel and find her relatable, and Camila [Morrone] delivered that from the very first tape. Adam [DiMarco] is so lovable, which was essential for the role of Nicky, but he plays the character with real layers underneath that. There is a trope in horror of the man who does not believe the woman, and I wanted the audience to be actively rooting for Rachel and Nicky as a couple. I think a lot of people stopped doing that around Episode Five, which is fair given what we reveal about Nicky. But keeping the audience invested in that relationship through all of it was part of the challenge. Jennifer [Jason Leigh] is someone I have admired for a long time. She always does something interesting and she was fantastic to work with. Ted [Levine] is an icon in the horror space. And then Karla [Crome], Jeff [Wilbusch], and Gus [Birney] were new discoveries for me. The three of them are so good together and such perfect foils for each other. The sibling dynamic felt very honest with that group. I would genuinely watch a spinoff about how those three live their lives.
Adding to the shape around the characters as well, you have really amazing worldbuilding with this “little” cabin (as it’s quoted in the show). What was it like seeing the house and the physical world of the show develop around you?
Haley Z. Boston: Also surreal. When I was writing the show I did not necessarily have a perfect image of what the house should look like. If I had to compare it to something it might be the house in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But when I started working with Weronika [Tofilska], our director, she had this great idea to lean into something more like a ski chalet, not like The Shining, something we have not quite seen before. When we found the exterior of that house and it just felt so strange and different, it was a no-brainer to design around it. The most surreal moment for me personally was during the rest stop scene in the pilot, where they find the baby. I was sitting in the back of the car with Weronika, and I remember just thinking, “I cannot believe I am on this road trip with them.” I wrote that pilot in 2021, so years had passed between the writing and standing there watching it happen. And then the same feeling hit at the end of Episode Eight, walking around the set completely covered in blood. My only note at that point was, “We need more blood.” All the department heads already saw it coming. They knew I was going to want more blood.
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