Netflix's New Psychological Thriller Is Like If Stephen King Wrote Yellowjackets

No TV show has captured the darkness of teenage girlhood quite like Yellowjackets, but with a plot worthy of a Stephen King novel, Netflix's upcoming psychological thriller series could give the Showtime series a run for its money. Premiering in 2021, Yellowjackets centers on a high school girls' soccer team in 1996, whose plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness. Stranded for 19 months, Yellowjackets' surviving girls resort to ritualistic cannibalism, possibly at the behest of the supernatural... or their own animalistic instincts.

As violent a premise as this is, Yellowjackets is anything but gratuitous, with the show being much more a metaphor for the brutal tribalism of female adolescence than a bloody gorefest. In that regard, Yellowjackets is quite similar to the works of Stephen King. Though the author has been dubbed the "King of Horror," beneath his scares are often themes of teenage coming-of-age and trauma, as seen in seminal novels like Carrie and IT​​​​​​.

Fans of Yellowjackets and King will want to keep their eyes peeled for The Body, Netflix's eight-episode psychological thriller series set to premiere on November 11, 2026. Created by Under the Bridge's Quinn Shepherd, The Body's official premise reads, "After a dance-team initiation goes wrong, a group of badly behaved Catholic school girls begin having prophetic visions that set off mass hysteria in their town." (via Netflix Tudum) Essentially, this is a siren song to those of us who fell in love with Carrie White.

Why Netflix's The Body Sounds Like A Stephen King Twist On Yellowjackets

The parallels between The Body and Yellowjackets are stark: both center on a close-knit team of teenage girls who experience a traumatizing incident and its bizarre, disturbing fallout. However, whereas Yellowjackets' mysticism is more of a slow-burn mystery, the "prophetic visions" in The Body promise to evoke more King-esque supernatural terror.

In fact, Shepherd cited a film adaptation of Carrie — she did not say which — as a direct influence on The Body. Speaking with Netflix Tudum, Shepherd said, "Movies like Carrie, Jennifer’s Body, Heavenly Creatures, and even Mean Girls [are all inspirations], but with a grounded lens... I love a spooky sense of mounting dread."

"I hope people eat popcorn while they watch this, even when The Body hits hard," she continued. "Maybe light some candles and throw a slumber party." It certainly sounds like something the Yellowjackets girls would do... albeit with more questionable snacks.

Everything We Know About Netflix's The Body So Far

The Body, which Shepherd describes as "a love letter to all the ’90s and Y2K teen movies and erotic thrillers," sees the creator reunite with executive producer and star of Under the Bridge, Riley Keough. However, this time Keough won't be in front of the camera, and will soley serve as an executive producer. The actual main cast is comprised of Kristina Bogic, Sara Boustany, Geena Meszaros, Nnamdi Asomugha, Louisa Krause, Shirley Chen, Jackson Kelly, and Sofia Wylie.

Like Yellowjackets, The Body will also highlight LGBTQ+ themes. Shepherd revealed, "It’s satirizing some of the trauma of growing up queer and repressed and the confusion around that... All the confusion, shame, passion, spirituality, and the language of girlhood [were things] I was still learning to speak. It felt really heavy to me."

However, don't expect the new Netflix show to be all doom and gloom. Shepherd confessed that The Body was the first TV script she ever wrote back in her early 20s, the same year she first came out. Going back, Shepherd said, "I was able to realize, ‘Oh, it’s a dramedy'... I think the biggest discovery was that there was so much comedy in it, which I imagine is something a lot of writers have when they revisit high school with a smidge more perspective."

Stephen King is certainly no stranger to revisiting high school, and this has led to some of the greatest horror stories of all time. Come November, that pantheon may very well include The Body.