Director: Barry Levinson

Starring: Will Rogers, Kristen Connolly, Kether Donahue

“Panic feeds on fear.”

A mysterious parasitic plague engulfs a small town in this found-footage thriller from prolific director Barry Levinson (Sphere, Rain Man, Good Morning Vietnam) and Producers Oren Peli and Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity). More of a disaster film than a horror, The Bay masquerades as a tell-all expose of the ‘truth’ behind mysterious mass deaths at a small town in rural America. Framed by an interview with one of the few survivors, the film documents events through various video mediums, such as Security footage, Dash cams, home videos – even FaceTime.

Light on scares and not all that action-packed, The Bay’s biggest problem is in it’s determination to convey some sort of environmental ‘message’. It’s revealed early on that Chesapeake Bay’s dastardly mayor has been dumping lots of chicken shit into the water, speeding up the growth of parasitic isopods who make their way into the towns supposedly purified water supplies. This leads, of course, to human hosts developing ghastly lesions and eventually being eaten from the inside out. Disrespecting nature is bad, you know.

Levinson’s directing is competent, but largely derailed by a poor script rife with appalling life-choices. Why would you, after discovering a town full of mutilated dead bodies, decide to drag your wife and newborn baby further into the obviously plague-ridden disaster zone, instead of getting back on your luxury boat and fucking off again? There’s also a scene where a cop decides to investigate noises at a house while his partner waits in the car, and after hearing gunshots the partner exits the car without calling for backup or leaving their location with despatch, and runs straight into the house to his death. These kind of decisions not only go against common sense but also protocol, which is much harder to swallow in a film masquerading as ‘real life’.

It’s a shame too, because this could have been something spectacular had it had more set-pieces, more realism and a far better script. As it stands though, The Bay is merely a mildly interesting, po-faced entry to the found-footage genre.

2/5