How a New Jersey ‘haunted house’ inspired Apple TV’s hit ‘Widow’s Bay’

The critically acclaimed Apple TV series “Widow’s Bay” has become the latest streaming sensation to captivate viewers and critics alike, earning critical acclaim across the board, thanks to its witty dialogue and dark, creepy undertones.

Starring Matthew Rhys, Kate O’FlynnAnd Stephen Wortelthe series, which premiered on April 29, is set in a fictional New England town after which the show is named, and focuses on the efforts of the local mayor, Tom Loftis, to turn the scenic location into “the next Martha’s Vineyard.”

Yet Loftis, played by Rhys, faces one major hurdle in his plan: Widow’s Bay, while both charming and picturesque on the surface, is also plagued by a series of unexplained supernatural events that have led its residents to decide the town is “cursed.”

Although the mayor refuses to be distracted from his plans to market Widow’s Bay as the ultimate New England escape, he faces an uphill battle when it comes to overcoming the town’s deeply sinister past, which includes tales of not one, but two suspected serial killers – and claims that anyone born in the town will die if they dare venture to the mainland.

Rather than delve into this sordid history and turn the city into a haunted attraction, Loftis is determined to move away from the city’s past and embrace a new future, a dream that, perhaps unsurprisingly, encounters more than a few problems along the way.

So far, the show has received critical acclaim, while also generating much speculation about whether Widow’s Bay was inspired by a real-life location, after being shot in a number of Massachusetts cities, including Worcester, Rockport and Gloucester.

In the show, Widow’s Bay, like Martha’s Vineyard, is described as a small island town off the coast of Massachusetts. However, that’s where the comparisons to New England’s luxury hotspot end.

Show runner Katie Dippold has made it clear that the mystery surrounding Widow’s Bay is part of its appeal, to the Boston Globe: “It’s a long ferry ride, you don’t know exactly if the ferry is from Massachusetts or Maine, but I deliberately wanted to keep that a little vague.”

In fact, the only real source of inspiration Dippold has credited with helping to create Widow’s Bay is located nearly 300 miles away from Massachusetts, in New Jersey, where the show’s creator grew up.

I spoke to GizmodoDippold revealed that she wanted Widow’s Bay to evoke the same kind of fear she experienced as a child, when she visited a local “haunted house” with her family.

“I would say the inspiration was trying to capture a certain feeling that I always wanted,” she said.

“As a kid in New Jersey in the ’80s, there was a haunted house that I used to go to with my family. It’s terrifying. I was way too young for it. But I loved that I went, and it was scary, and I screamed, but we laughed too, and it’s very communal.

“And so I wanted to capture that feeling. And I always wanted a place like this to actually exist.”

Dippold explained that she had always wanted to visit a town like the one she has now created: an idyllic coastal community where every turn brings a new mystery and a sense of sinister energy lingers in the air.

“For example, I want to go to this island,” she said. “I want to go to the strange inn, and I want to go to the Salty Whale. Just the feeling that there are nooks and crannies to explore is really exciting to me.”

However, a “haunted house” wasn’t the only place Dippold found inspiration, especially when it came to creating that authentic New England atmosphere, as she described it.

The showrunner points to the author Stefan King‘s legendary works as one of many places where she found ideas for the sinister underbelly of Widow’s Bay, while a restaurant in Marblehead, Massachusetts, helped fan the flames of what would one day form the quintessential New England town.

“I really wanted to tap into that Stephen King vibe,” Dippold told the Globe. “And a few years ago I also went to a restaurant in Marblehead, MA. It’s called the Driftwood, and it was just everything you could want.

“It was right by the sea. There are just big coffee mugs with old stains and locals in flannel shirts talking about the day. It was very cozy and very lived-in, and I just never wanted to leave. It came out of a Stephen King book.”

Dippold also turned to another great Massachusetts thriller when it came to creating that prevailing sense of terror: Stephen Spielberg‘s critically acclaimed 1975 hit “Jaws,” recorded in Martha’s Vineyard.

However, she noted that the intention was never to create a “parody” of the film, but rather to draw on the sense of panic it causes in the audience.

‘It was important that we felt good [we weren’t doing] parodying it or doing it exactly, but just the spirit of it,” she explained to Gizmodo.