If You Thought The Waterfront's Character Deaths Were Surprisingly Brutal, There's A Good Reason To Explain Why

WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for The Waterfront.

The use of violence during certain scenes in Netflix’s family crime drama series The Waterfront makes a lot more sense considering who the show’s creator is. Since premiering all eight episodes on Thursday, June 19, 2025, exclusively on Netflix, The Waterfront has shot up to the number one spot on the U.S. TV streaming charts. Holt McCallany leads the cast of The Waterfront as Harlan Buckley, a prominent businessman in the fictional coastal town of Havenport, North Carolina. While the Buckley name holds weight in the small idyllic community, it also harbors several dark secrets, including a drug-smuggling operation that keeps the family afloat.

While The Waterfront can veer into melodramatic territory, there are a handful of surprisingly violent scenes that depict death, torture, and other R-rated gory scenarios. Although The Waterfront is certainly not family-friendly by any means, the series does have certain qualities, like Netflix’s other recent small-town family drama series, Ransom Canyon, which suggests at face value that it could be suitable for younger audiences. With the arrival of Topher Grace’s outstanding villain character, Grady, an oddly cheerful drug supplier who is desperate to earn Harlan’s affection, also comes several violent and bloody scenes that may take viewers by surprise.

The Waterfront Was Created By Scream’s Kevin Williamson

Williamson Also Wrote The Screenplay For I Know What You Did Last Summer

The Waterfront’s more violent, horror-esque scenes can be easily rationalized considering that the series creator is none other than Kevin Williamson. While Williamson has been celebrated for his teen dramas such as Dawson’s Creek and The Vampire Diaries, he actually got his start as a prolific horror writer in the 1990s. He’s responsible for sourcing two horror franchises, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream. Williamson’s feature film debut as a screenwriter was 1996’s Scream, followed by 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. He also wrote 1997’s Scream 2 and the cult 1998 classic The Faculty.

The Waterfront’s Buckley Family Tree Explained: How Each Character Connects In Netflix’s Crime Drama

Netflix’s family crime drama series The Waterfront centers on the Buckley family, and most of its main cast members are connected by blood or history.

Williamson also went on to write the screenplays for 2011’s Scream 4 and the 2005 Wes Craven horror film Cursed. He recently developed the psychological thriller series Tell Me a Story, which ran for two seasons from 2018 to 2020.

Williamson doesn’t only write horror movies and TV shows, even though he is credited for creating the iconic horror villain and Halloween costume, Ghostface.

As shown by his other projects like The Waterfront, Williamson doesn’t only write horror movies and TV shows, even though he is credited for creating the iconic horror villain and Halloween costume, Ghostface. Given how violence lies at the heart of his horror projects like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, which is being rebooted in July 2025, The Waterfront’s violence makes much more sense.

The Waterfront Isn’t A Horror Show, But It Doesn’t Lean Away From Violence

Grady Seems Like More Of A Horror Villain Given Williamson’s Background

The gruesome deaths and torture scenes in The Waterfront are quiet nods to Williamson’s impact on the slasher horror genre. They are notably quite gory, especially for a Netflix show, but not enough to ever steer the crime drama series too far into the horror genre. One of the first surprisingly violent scenes was when Grady had one of his guys fire a machine gun at one of his former employees who had badmouthed Harlan, leaving his body mutilated. This came after the surprisingly gory scene in which Harlan stabs Sheriff Clyde Porter through the bottom of his neck with a screwdriver.

Iconic Horror Writer Crafted The Waterfront’s Lead Role Specifically for Its Star

Exclusive: Kevin Williamson tells ScreenRant’s Ash Crossan that he wrote his terrifying The Waterfront villain with Topher Grace in mind.

Another unforgettable moment of violence was when Harlan was being tortured by jellyfish, which seemed like something straight out of a horror movie. This actually makes Grady seem more like a horror villain, who is purely unhinged, unpredictable, and deceitful, much like the various characters who were revealed to be Ghostface in the Scream movies. Grady’s death at the end of The Waterfront is also shockingly gory. All this considered, it seems like Williamson couldn’t help but make these violent scenes in The Waterfront have horror qualities based on his filmography.