When people ask me to name the scariest movie I ever saw, I always tell them Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, a 1948 romp I saw on TV as a kid.
It's a slightly embarrassing answer, but in recent days I've had two other people tell me the same thing — one a 30-year-old woman, the other an 82-year-old man. We all agreed that what makes it so terrifying is that you think you're safely watching a dumb comedy, then — Boo! You're actually in a horror movie.
Juggling laughter and fright is the strategy of Widow's Bay, a new Apple TV series that has rolled out about half of its 10 episodes. Created by Katie Dippold — who wrote the Ghostbusters remake and countless episodes of Parks and Recreation — this amusing, sometimes nerve-wracking show has a soothingly retro feel. Looking back to horror stories of the '70s and '80s, it's like a Stranger Things intended for grown-ups.
Matthew Rhys stars as Tom Loftis, a widower who's the mayor of Widow's Bay, a small, cozy-seeming island off the New England coast. He's got the kind of quirky, exasperating staff you find in TV comedies, most importantly his lonely, awkward #2, Patricia — that's wonderful Kate O'Flynn — who hits him with aggrieved zingers.
It's Tom's dream to turn this sleepy island into another Martha's Vineyard crawling with tourists who drink cappuccino, read The New York Times, and make the place "happening." But the townsfolk have their doubts about his plans, partly because they don't like ponying up for espresso machines, partly because Tom can't even seem to manage his teenage son, who smokes weed and gets into trouble.
These superstitious locals also know something Tom works hard to deny. Widow's Bay is, um, cursed. It has a centuries-long history of plagues, ruinous typhoons, killer clowns — talk about mixing comedy and horror — not to mention all manner of supernatural visitations. Every few years, the island goes violently crazy.
When a travel writer pens a glowing newspaper article on Widow's Bay, the tourists start coming — and bad things start to happen. Devouring mists roll in, church bells inexplicably toll, people catch sight of spectral figures.
Tom finds himself badgered by a grizzled boat captain named Wyck — played by the always-great Stephen Root — who tells him to raise an alarm and stop the ferry from bringing more visitors. But like the mayor in Jaws who won't close the beach despite the shark attacks, Tom refuses.
A mistake. Soon, Tom, Patricia and Wyck are fighting to save the lives of the islanders and their visitors — an effort that requires, as ever, confronting what's buried in the past.
Now, the benchmark for TV comedy-horror is David Lynch's Twin Peaks, whose interlacing of goofiness and disturbing drama made it one of the most influential shows in television history. Widow's Bay is much lighter. Where Lynch explored our scariest psychic murk, Dippold taps into our pop culture past. We keep bumping into images and ideas that reference movies like Jaws, Halloween, The Fog and The Wicker Man among others, not to mention the work of Stephen King, whose titles appear prominently in the bookmobile Patricia drives around town.
That said, Widow's Bay gives you the pleasures you find in a handsomely-tooled series with top-notch talent, from directors like Hiro Murai, who's best known for Atlanta, to deft old character actors like Dale Dickey and K Callan.
All three leads are terrific, with O'Flynn teasing out the heroism in the forlorn Patricia and Root capturing the pathos beneath Wyck's driven exasperation. As for Rhys, who specializes in uncomfortable heroes, he's rarely been this good. His beleaguered Tom is a man whose face always starts off looking cocky then melts into anxiety.
Like nearly all series these days, Widow's Bay doesn't truly end — Dippold leaves doors open for a second season, which I would cheerfully watch. But she does build to a climax filled with emotion and with suspense that isn't merely suspenseful. The story confronts Tom — and us — with a moral conundrum that philosophers call the Trolley Problem. For all its comedy, Widow's Bay winds up asking a thorny question. Just how far would you go — and who would you sacrifice — to save those around you from harm?
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