| March 30, 2026 
| | |
Not your normal wedding jitters | | Camila Morrone and Adam DiMarco star in “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen.” Netflix |
Dear Watchers,If the pop culture of the past decade has taught us anything, it’s that no one should visit rich people in remote locations. Apparently Rachel (Camila Morrone), half of the engaged couple at the center of “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen,” must have missed “Get Out,” the first two “Knives Out” movies and basically every “Succession” episode set outside New York City. In the first episode of this matrimonial horror show, now streaming on Netflix, Rachel happily heads to upstate New York with her fiancé, Nicky (Adam DiMarco of “The White Lotus”). They plan to wed at the woodsy retreat owned by Nicky’s wealthy family, whom Rachel has not met. Immediately upon arrival, she feels an inescapable dread. Perhaps it’s all the taxidermied animals on the premises, or Nicky’s creepy siblings, or, I don’t know, the returned wedding invitation from an anonymous sender that has “DON’T MARRY HIM” scrawled on the back. The vibes are less “Father of the Bride” and more “Ready or Not.” Vibes are the best thing about this series, executive produced by Matt and Ross Duffer, their first post-“Stranger Things” effort. Over its eight episodes, the creator Haley Z. Boston (“Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities”) and her collaborators keep the audience in a constant state of unease with a series of familiar but effective horror tropes. There are slow pans across mysterious rooms, jump scares, voluminous amounts of blood and several nods to found footage films like “The Blair Witch Project.” Like so many Netflix shows, this one is dark — literally. Expect to turn up the brightness on your screen. In the early episodes, “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” seems like a commentary on the insularity and arrogance of the upper class. But it is ultimately more interested in how society and childhood trauma shape our expectations about marriage. While the story occasionally gets bogged down in the details surrounding a possible family curse, the performances, particularly from an emotionally layered Morrone and Jennifer Jason Leigh, as Nicky’s gently manipulative mother, keep the drama grounded just enough in something resembling reality. After all, the anxiety that often precedes a wedding is relatable. Hopefully all the bloodshed and terror is less so. Also this week | | “Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom” explores the life of the former basketball star. Netflix |
- The first two episodes of the three-part docuseries “Henry David Thoreau” — featuring voice work by George Clooney, Jeff Goldblum and Meryl Streep — debut on Monday, on PBS; the third and final installment airs Tuesday.
|
- “If It’s Tuesday, It’s Murder” is the outstanding title of a new Spanish series about a mysterious death among a group of tourists in Lisbon; it arrives on Tuesday, on Hulu.
- The sixth season of “Untold,” the docuseries that is part true crime and part “30 for 30,” releases the first of its four feature-length episodes, “The Death & Life of Lamar Odom,” on Tuesday, on Netflix.
- The third season “XO, Kitty” (a spinoff of “To All the Boys,” the film series based on Jenny Han’s teen romance novels) lands on Thursday, on Netflix.
- James Marsden joins Jon Hamm in the second season of “Your Friends & Neighbors,” premiering on Friday, on Apple TV.
|
|
