Warning: Spoilers for Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen ahead
Another Netflix original is coming hot out of the gate, and with the streaming giant sometimes being a 'screaming' giant, it's known for churning out plenty of scary stories. Alongside Bird Box, the Fear Street series, and all things Mike Flanagan on Netflix, the Duffer Brothers delivered a mix of frights and fun across five seasons of Stranger Things.
Although the dust has now settled on the divisive Stranger Things season 5, and the Duffers are about to end their Netflix deal as they've signed a similar one over at Paramount, their latest outing is said to be putting the willies up us.
Even though many are sad that the seemingly impossible adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub's The Talisman was killed before it could get off the starting blocks, 2026 is a big year for Matt and Ross Duffer. As well as the animated Stranger Things: Tales from '85, there’s The Boroughs, starring Alfred Molina and Geena Davis.
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The Duffer Brothers' first big release of the year is the wordy Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen, which stars Camila Morrone and Adam DiMarco as an engaged couple whose wedding is soon derailed by 'something very bad'.
While we won't reveal the big twist here, the fact that it's only an eight-episode miniseries means it's perfect for Netflix's bingeworthy streaming model. The jury is out on Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen, as its current standing on Rotten Tomatoes gives it a reasonably impressive 83% critic score and a more middling 69% audience score. These polarizing scores are backed up by complaints that the TV series is simply 'too dark', although others have pointed to a seemingly glaring plot hole.
Things quickly turn sour between Morrone's Rachel and DiMarco's Nicky, with the former plunging her car keys into the hand of a man who's been watching her in a bar toilet. As Rachel recounts the story to her fiancé, he consoles her, and the pair looks like they're about to get busy.
It's here that Rachel pulls away and says, "I have to do one thing," before we see him closing her inside an ornate box at the foot of the bed. You might expect this box to become a major plot point of the show, and it definitely adds to the claustrophobic horror elements as we hear her breathing heavily inside.
The next scene shows the happy couple having sex, with no mention of the box. Worse yet, the idea of the mysterious box isn't revisited before the final credits roll on the whole series.
Elsewhere, it's noted that the mystery of the 'Coldies' frozen custard shop seemingly goes nowhere.
There are mentions of how the founder, Larry Poole, killed three women, with its logo and an abandoned Coldies teeing up a big mystery in the first episode. There's even a flashback to 1997, where Rachel's parents meet a strange employee at a Coldies, while Sawyer Fraser's Jude is seen wearing a Coldies shirt.
Like too many of Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen's references, Coldies is never mentioned again.
Cue all those theories that Netflix is holding back some secret episode of Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen.