Composer Colin Stetson\u2019s music has unsettled audiences in everything from \u201cHereditary<\/a>\u201d to \u201cThe Menu<\/a>\u201d and the \u201cRed Dead Redemption\u201d video games, but he tries never to step in the same haunted well twice. His score for the Netflix<\/a> horror miniseries \u201cSomething Very Bad Is Going to Happen<\/a>\u201d may start in a place that could give some\u00a0 \u201cHereditary\u201d fans deja vu \u2014\u00a0low winds and eerie saxophone arpeggios \u2014 but he wanted to build a musical language that could grow into something radically different, alongside the twists poor Rachel Harkin (Camilla Morrone<\/a>) has to deal with in the week leading up to her wedding with Nicky Cunningham (Adam DiMarco).<\/p>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI really don\u2019t go for a Frankenstein construction; there has to be a cohesive throughline,\u201d Stetson told IndieWire. \u201cHow do we weave disparate elements together and make it so that they\u2019re all of an ilk? I think because of the nature of the left turns in the show, I wanted to start in a place musically that was a bit more familiar, maybe, closer to my work in the past that people would identify with, so that when we switch gears, it\u2019s really remarkable not just from a story perspective but from a sonic perspective and the overall aesthetic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The pilot script, written by Haley Z. Boston, Alana B. Lytle, and Ben Bolea, immediately fired Stetson up to seek a sonic perspective that blended the familiar and the strange, blending lo-fi sensibilities with a sometimes violent momentum and choruses of instruments we normally don\u2019t hear together in concert. By taking roads not quite so well-traveled, musically, Stetson felt he could approach the knotty, complicated questions that \u201cSomething Very Bad Is Going to Happen<\/a>\u201d asks about relationships and how deeply we can ever truly know others.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMany things are set up in the first episode that are paid off in ways which are far more satisfying on a human level than maybe your standard idea of where you think a horror [show] is going. That\u2019s what I\u2019m drawn to, and on a lot of different projects: Is there real humanity in this, or is this a monster movie?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n On reading the pilot script, Stetson almost immediately gravitated towards three musical pillars that would allow him to write a score that is as twisted and twisting as the miniseries itself. He wanted to evoke a natural element, given how much of the show takes place in a cabin, and so much of the percussion comes from tree creaking. He gravitated to the Mellotron, a kind of electronic keyboard played onto magnetic tape, for the main thematic ideas. Stetson also gathered a lot of woodwinds, particularly clarinets, as a counterpoint to the trees and as a voice for the icy, violent dread that hangs over the Harkin-Cunningham nuptials.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI get a sense of what I want the main instrumentation to be, usually three centers, and then I\u2019ll have several days of just tracking. I\u2019ll just set things recording, and I\u2019ll play. I think about what the scenes are in my head, based on the script, and just go go go go go go. Then, later, it\u2019s about sifting through and seeing what really lands,\u201d Stetson said. \u201cThe main elements, though, weave things all together, whether they\u2019re leaning in one very, very distinctive direction or another.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the joys of \u201cSomething Very Bad Is Going To Happen\u201d is that Stetson got to take some very big musical swings in very, very distinctive directions, going more synth for Episode 7, and then tying the score into a unified knot in the Episode 8 finale. While Stetson wrote most of the score in advance of ever seeing picture, allowing the miniseries\u2019 directors to get a sense of the vibe well in advance, the composer wrote to picture for the final episodes, and played all of the instruments himself. \u201cThe music has a lot of heaving lifting to do,\u201d Stetson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n But that effort is part of the draw for Stetson. \u201cWhen I do something, there\u2019s really no hemming and hawing. I read [the script], and I go, \u2018Yes, I would like to do this. I have something already in my head. Let\u2019s go.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Billy](\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-Audacity-AMC-series-Billy-Magnussen.jpg?w=300&h=168&crop=1\")
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