Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen: the Duffer brothers’ horror series is absolutely terrifying

The creators of Stranger Things’s new dread-suffused drama sees a happy couple head off for an idyllic wedding – a poorly-lit cabin in the woods. The results are chilling

When I heard the Duffer brothers, creators of Stranger Things, had a new series on Netflix, I knew I had to watch – but I was not eager. I believe identical twins who make moving pictures are inherently creepy, even when those productions aren’t called Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen. My nervous system won’t let me enjoy horror, and I don’t understand people who do. Is life not scary enough?

The first episode (out Thursday 26 March) – is that a working title or what? It’s like calling Mrs Doubtfire “Heartwarming Drag Act”, or Free Willy “Pelagic Marine Predators Do Not Belong in Captivity” – places us four days before the wedding of Nicky (Adam DiMarco) and Rachel (Camila Morrone), the central event of the story.

They’re in the car, driving to Nicky’s parents’ vacation cabin in the woods, which is to be the snow-covered setting for their wedding. But things get eerie. They find a baby locked in a car by an empty bar. Rachel goes to look for the parents and use the bathroom, where a man watches her pee. The song You Are My Destiny by Paul Anka plays in a distorted way. A higher-spec sound system would alleviate this dread, but I understand that can’t be a priority at rest stops.

I don’t know who thinks even a family-only wedding in a vacation cabin is a logistically sound idea – but they needn’t worry. When they arrive, it’s the size of the Overlook Hotel, with curving corridors and a central atrium housing a haunting family portrait. Naturally, the portrait features an empty chair, waiting for Rachel to be painted in, and a scrubbed-out ex-wife. It’s guarded by stuffed Irish wolfhounds, whose eyes Rachel is warned not to look into.

Now, I don’t care if it’s Medusa, Tom Cruise or a taxidermied dog: if someone tells me I am not allowed to look something in the eye, I’m leaving that situation. Unfathomably, Rachel stays. It’s these choices that get me frustrated with horror. I’m the person shouting “Don’t go in there!” or “He’s certainly a murderer!” at the screen, entirely missing the point.

That night, Rachel wanders down to the kitchen and finds her fiance’s siblings – Jules and a baby-voiced Portia. Portia, for no reason at all, tells Rachel the story of Jules’s childhood trauma encountering the Sorry Man: a terrifying figure drawn to blood, who is looking for his lost wife in the entrails of other brides. All completely normal. “Don’t let the Sorry Man see your insides,” says Portia, instead of goodnight.

I won’t say more. But as you’d expect, the show has a great line in off-kilter images and limbo-like scenes suffused with dread. It’s elevated by the presence of Jennifer Jason Leigh as a strange matriarch. When she showed up at midnight, saying some … stranger things, I got jumpy. I had to turn the volume down. I started to get annoyed it was all so scary.

Why is it so dark in their house? What bulbs are they using in the lamps, two watt? How are they reading cooking instructions or putting in contact lenses? Are you telling me no one here requires corrective vision aids? No one goes on their phone. Don’t they have emails to check?

A bleak prospect seems to await Rachel, who finds an ominous note on the floor that reads “Don’t Marry Him”, dripping with blood. Sex and death have always been linked in horror; marriage and murder’s a nice spin. The show has fun with the trappings of weddings from hell: the charged politics of the dress, heirlooms borrowed and blue, soulmates and twig-festooned decor. (“This is supposed to be live-edge cedar, not Blair Witch Project,” complains party organiser Portia.) Most of all, it gives chilling new meaning to having cold feet.

Maybe this is up your street. Do I want to get this family access to decent wifi, with a network of signal boosters, because their house is an odd shape? Do I think there is something wrong with horror fans, probably sexual? Do I worry I won’t sleep tonight? I do! A thousand times, I do!