Cake, a white dress, rings, teary vows… and anxiety. Plenty of anxiety. Netflix released The Foreboding (original French title: Un très mauvais pressentiment) on March 26. Produced by the Duffer brothers—best known for Stranger Things—the show quickly gained attention. But does it truly earn those chills, or is it just riding on big names? When it comes to substance, critics are sharply divided.
A Chilling Wedding Set-Up and a Family from Your Nightmares
Here’s the premise: a young bride-to-be haunted by a troubled past, an exceptionally wealthy groom, all gathered in a luxury mountain villa packed with taxidermy. Add in a wildly neurotic in-law crowd, and you’ve got Netflix’s latest horror thriller. Camila Morrone and Adam DiMarco share the screen in this psychological, snowbound thriller, where nuptials are anything but joyful.
Atmosphere: Mesmerizing and Nerve-Rattling
To be transparent, we didn’t finish all eight episodes of Season 1—sometimes, real life intervenes. Our early impression? It’s a mixed experience. Visually, the series stuns: the icy setting, eerie décor (those lifeless hunting dogs practically dare you to look away), and masterful jump scares had us lowering the volume or averted our gaze more than once.
But there’s also confusion. The steady stream of cryptic clues thrown at Rachel—the bride—stoked her paranoia and investigative drive. Both she and the audience can feel overwhelmed by the abundance of hints, making the plot’s puzzle tough to piece together. If puzzles aren’t your thing, you might feel lost more than once.
Undisputed: The Show Delivers on Scares
On this point, everyone agrees: The Foreboding doesn’t hold back on horror. Between blood-soaked flashbacks and flash-forwards, disturbing family legends featuring a lurking woods slasher, and faint sightings of phantoms drifting through dimly lit hallways, it’s hard not to shiver. The set could have used a few more lamps.
The Guardian described the show as “so hellish it will keep you up at night.” Indiewire praised the direction, saying it “will delight fans of horror and gore.” Screen Rant called it a “thrilling and terrifying series that will leave every viewer rattled.”
The cast’s performances drew praise as well. Camila Morrone—seen recently in Season 2 of The Night Agent—and coworkers like Adam DiMarco (The White Lotus), Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Gus Birney stood out. But opinions split on the show’s pacing, stemming from the writing by Haley Z. Boston.
Pacing: Dragging or Purposeful?
Some critics, like those at Time, felt the series took too long to get moving:
“I had to fight the urge to bump up the playback speed to 1.5x just to finally find out what happens,” the reviewer joked, lamenting the wait to even “start to understand what we’re even watching.”
Variety echoed this criticism, arguing that horror—especially this script—doesn’t always translate well to a stretched-out, episodic TV format:
“The tension you need to scare people is extremely hard to sustain over several hours.”
The Hollywood Reporter agreed, also noting that secondary characters lacked development: “Which is odd, given how long the show feels, that it never really takes the time to dissect its characters.”
Yet, others saw the pace as effective. Screen Rant viewed the jumpy, slow-burning story as keeping viewers guessing—never sure who to trust. Indiewire enjoyed the mounting dread, saying every episode “bringing the couple closer to the altar is filled with chilling twists and clever existential questions.”
Some viewers preferred the early, murky chaos filled with befuddlement (“Wait, what is happening?”), while others enjoyed the process of unraveling the mystery as Rachel—and the audience—started putting it together. Outlets like IndieWire, Screen Rant, and the French pop culture site Écran Large raved; others such as Télérama and The Wall Street Journal were less kind.
One thing’s certain: this is not dinner-table viewing. Turn up the lights, and settle in to judge for yourself.
