Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay showed up out of the blue this spring and changed the game for the comedy-horror genre. Katie Dippold’s masterpiece launched with a rare 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, before receiving an incredible 19 Emmy nominations. It secured eight wins at the Creative Arts ceremonies, including a long-awaited triumph for Betty Gilpin.
Horror royalty like Stephen King took notice, and so did everyone else. Season 2 can’t come fast enough, and the wait is already quite brutal. But while fans wait for it, these five shows, featuring cursed islands and small towns keeping big secrets, will fill the void nicely. A couple aren’t quite textbook folk horror, and genre purists might quibble over that, but each one shares the exact same DNA as Widow’s Bay.
5. Bodkin
Bodkin isn’t exactly folk horror per se, but it does borrow several elements of that subgenre, including a close-knit coastal town and locals who guard their history like it’s sacred. Will Forte plays Gilbert, an American true-crime podcaster who finds himself in a small Irish coastal town while chasing the 25-year-old disappearance of three locals tied to Samhain, the harvest festival locals still take seriously. He’s paired with a sharp-tongued Irish journalist and an eager young researcher, and together they realize that the town is hiding more than one unsolved mystery.
Just as Widow’s Bay pokes fun at supernatural tropes while still scaring people, Bodkin does the same to true-crime obsessives. The whole thing bounces between comedy and something darker, basically starting like Only Murders in the Building and transcending into Twin Peaks by the finale. That unpredictability, though, ends up being half the fun.
4. Midnight Mass
Crockett Island has bigger problems than boosting tourism. Just making it to Sunday service without something horrible happening would count as a win. Mike Flanagan trades Widow’s Bay’s humor for something heavier, but the bones match: a tiny community cut off from the mainland, a charismatic outsider stirring things up, and a secret big enough to swallow the whole town.
The whole thing is less jump scares and more seven hours of people talking about faith and grief, and what they’re willing to believe to make the pain stop. Hamish Linklater plays the new priest who’s way too charismatic for a town where anything rarely happens. Widow’s Bay’s fans will immediately recognize him as the actor who bagged an Emmy nomination for playing Richard Warren on the hit series. He’s just as magnetic here, so watching him go full island prophet is a nice bonus.
3. The Summer Hikaru Died
This one is Japanese anime, but it’s no less devastating. In fact, it might be the saddest show on this list. A kid named Yoshiki starts noticing that his childhood friend Hikaru isn’t quite Hikaru anymore. Something else is wearing his face. But Hikaru sticks around anyway, because grief makes people do strange things, and so does love.
The show is quiet and slow, and mostly sits with these two characters as they drift towards something terrible. It’s based on a Manga by Mokumokuren, and holds a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, which rarely happens. If the goal is to feel sad for a week, this is the show to make it happen.
2. The Third Day
While Midnight Mass keeps at least one foot in reality, The Third Day abandons logic completely. Sam (Jude Law) is pulled onto Osea Island after rescuing a teenager, and then spends the first half of the miniseries stumbling into local pagan rituals he doesn’t understand. The island itself, a real spot off the English coast, is only reachable by a road that vanishes underwater twice a day.
Critics kept comparing it to The Wicker Man and Midsommar, and once the rituals start, it’s easy to see why. Helen (Naomie Harris) arrives for round two to find out that the island hasn’t calmed down one bit since Law’s Sam left. A live theater performance called “Autumn” even connects the two halves, which is about as experimental as TV gets. By the end, viewers might not understand what they just watched, but they sure won’t forget about it.
1. Marianne
Marianne is a French horror about a writer whose demonic witch character comes to life. Sounds goofy and campy. It’s not. Terrifying just might be the right word to describe it. The show takes place in a foggy coastal town, and the whole thing looks like it’s soaked in dread.
It got compared to Stephen King’s Misery almost immediately, and the author himself tweeted about it, which is basically the highest honor a horror show can get. If Widow’s Bay is a haunted house with a sense of humor, Marianne is the same house, but someone turned off all the lights and locked the door. Watch it with a friend. Or don’t. The reaction is pretty much the same.
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