Sometimes I have to remind myself that I believe in the supernatural. I mean God, not ghosts. One reason I love horror is because the genre insists that for all of the world’s attempts to explain everything that happens to us, there are still some mysteries. Vampires, zombies, and their blood-chilling ilk remind me there are some questions only God knows the answers to. Part of faith is learning to live with mystery and accepting the supernatural as part of our lived reality.
Into this great mysterious tradition steps the Apple TV horror-comedy series Widow’s Bay, created by former Parks and Recreation writer Katie Dippold. Set in a small New England town, Widow’s Bay plays with Parks and Recreation’s love for the honorable-but-absurd inner workings of small town government and Dippold’s deep love of horror, particularly the “monster-of-the-week” variety popularized by shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, and Supernatural.
The result is heavily referential—critics and horror fans have pointed out dozens of well-placed in-jokes on social media—but totally unique, combining character-based jokes with genuine scares to build a fascinating, scary, and frequently relatable world. Most horror storytelling uses villains and beasts as metaphors for existential fears. Widow’s Bay uses its haunted hotels, sea hags, and killer clowns to explore something more mundane but equally profound: How to live alongside forces we don’t understand.
Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) is the mayor of Widow’s Bay, an island community so underdeveloped it has no Wi-Fi or cell service. He hopes tourism revenue (“It’s the next Martha’s Vineyard!” he repeatedly proclaims) will help the town join the rest of modern society. Tom’s efforts are hindered by Wyck (Stephen Root), a crusty fisherman who aggressively asserts bringing in outsiders will mean certain death—not cultural or economic death, but literal death—because the island is cursed. Tom is skeptical, but the town’s increasingly frightening phenomena suggest Wyck’s paranoid delusions may not be so paranoid after all.
Tom’s desire to develop Widow’s Bay into a tourist destination means he’s got some obvious professional and financial reasons to ignore Wyck’s warnings. But it’s not all self-interest. Like many of us, Tom is conditioned to seek reason and answers over the vulnerability of admitting he doesn’t always know what’s going on. In our world, that deeply ingrained tendency is true of religious and non-religious folks alike. Rev. Tish Harrison Warren writes in her book Prayer in the Night, “Most of us who are educated into even mild sophistication—including Christians—proceed as if God is distant, as if the world is ours to control. It’s not full of enchantment, not teeming with mysteries…But this was not always the case.”
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Warren explains that pre-Enlightenment Christian theologians like Thomas Aquinas, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Hilary of Poitiers described a universe full of what Aquinas referred to as “incorporeal creatures.” Though we don’t often speak of the supernatural elements of faith now, (Warren argues we should) such language still exists in contemporary Christian liturgy. For instance, Catholic and Anglican traditions continue to use the terms “the mystery of faith” or “holy mysteries,” to refer to phenomena including the Trinity, the Eucharist, Christ's death and resurrection, the sacraments, and “the truth that passes all rational understanding.”
Warren acknowledges the forces of spiritual good. But Widow’s Bay isn’t haunted by nice ghosts. Each episode uses classic horror plotlines to show exactly how haunted this place is. A visit to the local inn blends Stephen King’s The Shining, 1408, and It to create an overnight stay from hell. Tom’s assistant Patricia (Kate O’Flynn, who steals the whole series) is the lone survivor of a slasher who returns to terrorize the town Halloween-style. Wyck’s personal trauma is straight out of Jaws with a little H.P. Lovecraft thrown in for seasoning.
These experiences are closer to what theologian Walter Wink writes about in The Powers That Be on how forces of good and evil frequently operate through established systems, corporate, governmental, and otherwise. “Religious tradition has often treated the Powers as angelic or demonic beings fluttering about in the sky. Behind the gross literalism of that way of thinking, however, is the clear perception that spiritual forces impinge on and determine our lives,” Wink writes. “There is more to what goes on in the world than what newspapers and newscasters report.”
In Wink’s consideration, to deny the existence of spiritual powers in the world is to pin the responsibility of both good and bad events on the actions of someone in power: world leaders, CEOs, and others with authority we don’t have. In reality, those actions (while important) are part of a larger, more complicated web we only understand a small part of. That truth carries spiritual implications that shouldn’t be ignored.
Over the course of Widow’s Bay’s first season, the show’s characters learn a similar lesson through their experiences with the island’s bizarre anomalies, becoming stronger in the process. Tom moves from dismissive of the island’s supernatural nature to fearful to begrudgingly accepting. Patricia goes from isolated and uncertain to confident and prepared. Wyck becomes more empathetic toward Tom and Patricia. They each want better lives for themselves and their fellow islanders, but they all require a fuller understanding of what’s actually standing between them and that goal. That acceptance is key to their finding the ability to come together, survive, and fight back.
In the show’s season finale, Tom talks with Ruth (K Callan) a town elder who’s just described a history of comically horrible things she’s experienced during her lifetime on the island, including a lost love who “was bitten by an animal and then became that animal.” Tom sighs, “This place is a house of horrors.” Ruth responds with a characteristically sweet smile, “Life is a house of horrors!” She shares her favorite quote with Tom, usually attributed to playwright Tennessee Williams: “The world is violent and mercurial—it will have its way with you…We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.”
Tom and Ruth’s exchange feels like Widow’s Bay’s outlook in a nutshell. Bad things happen all the time, whether those things are centuries-old curses or horrible accidents. All we can manage is how we react. Like all good horror stories, Widow’s Bay understands that one of our motives for clinging to reason is a desire to control the uncontrollable. But just like much of the world, God is uncontrollable. There is something scary in realizing we don’t have all the answers, but there’s something wonderful as well. Because if we’re willing to admit we believe in supernatural evil, maybe we can get ourselves to believe in a risen Lord, too.
Widow’s Bay uses its haunted hotels, sea hags, and killer clowns to explore something more mundane but equally profound: How to live alongside forces we don’t understand.
Abby Olcese is a freelance film critic and writer based in Missouri. You can find her on Twitter @abbyolcese.
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