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8 Horror Movies and TV Shows That Feel Like ‘Widow’s Bay’

Updated

September 15, 2026

A woman in a floral dress and cardigan walks alongside a man in a black jacket on a dirt road through a run-down small town.

Widow’s Bay swept the Emmys, proving a cursed New England island can be both terrifying and funny enough to take home a record 14 awards. There’s a reason small coastal towns and isolated islands keep showing up in horror: the water cuts you off, the fog hides what’s coming, and everyone already knows everyone else’s secrets. When something old and hungry lives just offshore, there’s nowhere left to run.

If you loved Widow’s Bay, check out these horror movies and TV shows that are also set in small coastal communities and may remind you of the Apple TV show.

A man in a British police uniform and checkered cap stands amid a group of quirky locals, one of whom plays a concertina, in an indoor scene. — A stoic police officer in full uniform faces an eccentric gathering of islanders — one strumming a concertina — in a scene from the 1973 British folk-horror classic The Wicker Man.

The Wicker Man (1973) — A police officer arrives on a remote Scottish island to investigate a missing girl and finds a pagan community that has its own very different ideas about sacrifice. Like Widow’s Bay, it’s a closed-off island where the locals would rather protect their traditions than admit something is deeply wrong.

A middle-aged man with glasses and a cigarette stares ahead with a large mechanical shark's open-mouthed head looming behind him. — A bespectacled man smoking a cigarette comes face-to-face with the massive jaws of the great white shark in *Jaws* (1975).

Jaws (1975) — A Great White starts feeding off a New England beach town just as the mayor is trying to keep the summer tourist season alive. The clash between civic boosterism and an unstoppable threat from the water is almost the same problem Widow’s Bay’s mayor faces, only with fewer ghosts and more teeth.

A blue-skinned vampire with yellow eyes and long fingernails grabs a boy in a plaid shirt by the throat in a kitchen. — A pale, fanged vampire grips a young boy by the throat in a kitchen scene from the 1979 miniseries *Salem’s Lot*. © Warner Bros. / Courtesy: Everett Collection

Salem’s Lot (1979) — A writer returns to his small Maine hometown and discovers the place is quietly being taken over by vampires. The insular New England community that looks normal by day while something old and hungry moves through it at night feels like a darker cousin to Widow’s Bay.

A dark silhouetted figure with red glowing eyes and a weapon stands in a corridor engulfed in thick white fog, with shadowy figures behind. — A glowing-eyed figure clutching a weapon emerges from billowing fog in John Carpenter’s *The Fog* (1980).

The Fog (1980) — A coastal town celebrates its centennial as a glowing fog rolls in, carrying the ghosts of a shipwreck the founders once caused. John Carpenter’s film shares Widow’s Bay’s sense that the sea remembers what the town would rather forget.

A man in a black period coat stands in a dark foggy forest, with a young man and woman in pale costume and a white horse visible in the background. — Standing tense in a misty, leaf-strewn forest, a dark-coated man looks skyward while a young couple lingers behind him beside a pale horse in this atmospheric shot from Sleepy Hollow (1999).

Sleepy Hollow (1999) — Ichabod Crane is sent to a fog-bound village where the Headless Horseman is harvesting heads. The isolated, superstitious settlement hiding its history behind autumn mist has the same closed-community dread as the cursed island in Widow’s Bay.

A tall man in a black coat and knit cap stands among rows of seated townspeople in a wood-paneled meeting hall. — A lone figure in a dark peacoat and beanie stands in the aisle of a packed town-hall meeting in *Storm of the Century* (1999).

Storm of the Century (1999) — A stranger walks into a Maine island town during a once-in-a-century blizzard and demands a terrible price. Stephen King’s miniseries turns the island’s isolation into a trap, much like Widow’s Bay uses the water to keep its residents from easily escaping whatever lives there.

A woman holding a long stick and a man carrying a young boy run in fear through dense mist near parked cars. — Survivors clutching a makeshift spear race through an eerie blue-grey mist in Frank Darabont’s *The Mist* (2007).

The Mist (2007) — A strange mist descends on a small Maine town and brings creatures from another dimension with it. While not an island, the way the community fractures under pressure while something unexplainable waits just outside the door echoes the trapped-town feeling of Widow’s Bay.

Still from Midnight Mass (2021) — A scene from the Netflix horror series Midnight Mass (2021).

Midnight Mass (2021) — A struggling island parish off the New England coast is transformed when a mysterious priest arrives with what looks like a miracle. Mike Flanagan’s series understands the same thing Widow’s Bay does: on a small island, faith, isolation, and something ancient washing ashore can rewrite an entire community overnight.

Meet The Author

Chrissy Stockton

Chrissy is the co-founder of Creepy Catalog. She has over 10 years of experience writing about horror, a degree in philosophy and Reiki level II certification.