Even an above-average horror comedy is like one of those novelty amphibious automobiles. It might technically float on water and drive on the road, but it’s nobody’s idea of either a good boat or a good car. Likewise, a movie or show that tries to be scary and funny is often OK at both but usually not great at either.
But “Widow’s Bay,” an immediate hit on the Apple TV+ platform, occupies both of those lanes with such assuredness that it makes you wonder why this kind of series doesn’t happen more often. Probably because it’s nowhere near as easy as creator Katie Dippold’s deeply spooky and deeply hilarious new series makes it look.
The series places us in a stock horror setting: the titular Widow’s Bay, a New England island community full of colorful goofballs played by familiar character actors. Imagine the cast of “The Office” trapped in one of the better Stephen King adaptations, and you’d probably be pretty close to the elevator pitch. (Dippold was a writer on “Parks and Recreation.”)
The always brilliant Matthew Rhys (“The Americans,” “Perry Mason,” “The Beast In Me”) stars as Tom Loftis, the island’s put-upon mayor, whose efforts to promote Widow’s Bay to the outside world butt against some of the island’s less marketable aspects, including the fact that many of its residents believe the place is cursed.
Three episodes in, the precise source of these fears is not yet clear, but there is a lot of material to work with: Sailors who vanished at sea, earthquakes, fog that turns people into zombies, at least two serial killers, cannibalism, a ghost bride named Ugly Hortense, a restaurant with a basement torture chamber, flocks of birds that intuit the supernatural and several references to disembodied teeth.
Then of course there is the bit of folklore that impacts Tom directly: Legend says any person born in Widow’s Bay will die if they ever set foot on the mainland. This doesn’t apply to Tom, an outsider who settled on the island, but since his teen son Evan (Kingston Rumi Southwick) is a Widow’s Bay native, Tom’s pragmatic optimism is frequently tested by the gravity of superstition.
The series has its fun with genre tropes — the haunted buildings, the ominous townies, even the police chief (Kevin Carroll) who’s about to retire, which of course means he isn’t long for this world. But it also takes these elements seriously, because they work on viewers.
None of this fully explains what makes “Widow’s Bay” so good. The show excels because it understands that both horror and comedy have more in common than would seem obvious.
Scares and jokes require similar uses of tension and release. The difference is a matter of tone, so the real challenge is building laughs and frightening moments so they complement and enhance each other.
The scripts are as joke-dense as any episode of “30 Rock,” and the pilot episode provided a handful of lines that we’re already quoting in my house. But the early installments, directed by “Atlanta” veteran Hiro Murai, also have the claustrophobic feel, visual boldness and airtight editing of “elevated” modern horror.
The show would not work without a believable lead performance. The pilot builds to a moment that could have tipped the series decisively toward comedy. But Rhys plays it with a sincerity that disarms the viewer as effectively as any of the episode’s scares or jokes.
Since I’m much more of a comedy person than a horror person, that would have been just fine, but “Widow’s Bay” isn’t about to let squeamish viewers off so easily. The show’s genre fluidity keeps the audience in a state of emotional unreadiness for whatever is coming next, and that vulnerability heightens the impact.
Comedy and horror, when executed successfully, both provoke involuntary visceral responses, be they laughs or shrieks. Whether it comes from a classic jump scare or a well-delivered joke, we end up gasping for the same air.