The Bay (film)

The Bay
Theatrical film poster
Directed by	Barry Levinson
Screenplay by	Michael Wallach
Story by	Barry Levinson Michael Wallach
Produced by	Barry Levinson Jason Blum Steven Schneider Oren Peli
Starring	Will Rogers Kristen Connolly Kether Donohue Frank Deal Stephen Nunken Christopher Denham Nansi Aluka
Cinematography	Josh Nussbaum
Edited by	Aaron Yanes
Music by	Marcelo Zarvos
Production companies	Baltimore Pictures Haunted Movies Alliance Films IM Global Hydraulx Entertainment Automatik Entertainment
Distributed by	Lionsgate Roadside Attractions
Release dates	September 13, 2012 (2012-09-13) (Toronto International Film Festival) November 2, 2012 (2012-11-02) (United States)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2 million[1]
Box office	$1.6 million[2]

The Bay is a 2012 American mockumentary horror film directed by Barry Levinson and written by Michael Wallach. It stars Kether Donohue, Nansi Aluka, Christopher Denham, Frank Deal, and Kristen Connolly and premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released in theaters on November 2, 2012.^[3][4]

Plot[]

The movie explains the footage was confiscated by the U.S. government until an anonymous source leaked the footage for the entire world to see. The footage is gathered from various news reports and home video, following multiple narrative lines.

On July 4, 2009, Claridge, a seaside Chesapeake Bay town nestled on Maryland's Eastern Shore thrives on water, both from tourism and from how it benefits the chicken industry. However, the chicken farm has come under fire from criticism from some citizens who are concerned about the water quality of the bay due to the dumping of chicken excrement and other toxins into the water, though Mayor Stockman, who is eager to further Claridge's burgeoning economy, insists the water is perfectly safe. Despite Stockman's proclamations, as rookie reporter Donna (the individual behind the film's leaked footage) covers the event, dozens of citizens begin falling ill with severe lesions with no explanation. Participants of a crab-eating contest also all begin to vomit violently. Dr. Abrams, the head of the local hospital, is overwhelmed with patients and contacts the CDC, who initially believe the issue to be caused by an unknown virus or fungal infection. The city descends into chaos as people begin dying en masse within hours. Two teenagers are killed by an unknown animal while swimming, and several citizens, including a teenage girl using FaceTime to speak with a friend, report bizarre symptoms, including the feeling of bugs within their bodies. Many die within hours. Mayor Stockman continues to downplay and deny the situation.

It is revealed that months beforehand, two oceanographers discovered high levels of toxicity in the bay. After encountering multiple eviscerated fish eaten from the inside out, they realize that the true culprit is the tongue-eating louse, also known as Cymothoa exigua. The ispopods have seemingly evolved to affect humans as well due to the high volume of excrement from the chickens from the plant, who were pumped with steroids to promote rapid growth. Because of this, the isopods breed and grow quickly, killing off millions of fish and causing 40% of the bay to become lifeless. It is also discovered that the boils and lesions are the result of the isopods eating their hosts from the inside out. The oceanographers alert the city's environmental council, but Mayor Stockman, who heads the council, ignores the warnings. The oceanographers are killed by a swarm of fully-grown isopods while doing further research, and their bodies are discovered shortly before the events of the film but are initially written off as victims of a shark attack.

Stephanie and Alex, a young couple with a newborn, sail to Claridge, unaware of the danger as local law enforcement has shut down cell towers. The bridge to the town is also shut down as the citizens are forcibly quarantined. Meanwhile, two deputies are overcome with complaints of citizens screaming in pain; in a digitally enhanced audio recording, Officer Jimson encounters an infected family begging to be killed. Having gone insane from seeing what has happened, he euthanizes them, and then murders his partner Paul after one of the isopods bites him. After being confronted by the sheriff and Mayor Stockman, he is revealed to also be covered in lesions; he kills the sheriff and then commits suicide. Mayor Stockman flees in haste, only to be killed in a car accident.

An infected Dr. Abrams is told by the CDC that no help is forthcoming; he uses his final hours to document the mass of dead bodies within the hospital, among whom is the teenage girl from earlier. Officials at the CDC learn that the water in Claridge contained a slew of toxins and likely had a considerable radioactive rating, but it was never reported previously due to radioactivity not being a quality that is measured in water quality checks. The CDC also contacts Homeland Security, who write off the chaos as happening in a "small town" and fail to offer help. Stephanie and Alex arrive to find the town mostly deserted, with corpses littering the street. Alex, who swam in the bay earlier, becomes infected and dies. Stephanie is able to escape unharmed with her baby.

Years later, Donna leaks the gathered footage, revealing that the government managed to kill the isopods by filling the water with chlorine; they then covered up the incident as the result of "unusually high water temperatures" and paid off the few survivors and relatives in exchange for silence. Donna guesses that the government may kill her for leaking the information and reveals Stephanie survived but refused to participate in the film. The movie ends with shots of civilians innocently enjoying the water of the bay, unaware of the dangers, as 40% of the bay remains lifeless.

Cast[]

• Kether Donohue as Donna Thompson
• Kristen Connolly as Stephanie
• Will Rogers as Alex
• Stephen Kunken as Dr. Jack Abrams
• Robert Treveiler as Dr. Williams
• Nansi Aluka as Jaqueline
• Christopher Denham as Sam
• Frank Deal as Mayor John Stockman
• Michael Beasley as Deputy Jimson
• Jody Thompson as Deputy Paul
• Andrew Stahl as Sheriff Lee Roberts
• Jane McNeill as Victim #1

Production[]

The film came about as a result of a documentary Levinson was asked to produce about problems facing the Chesapeake Bay.^[5] Although Levinson chose to abandon the documentary upon learning that Frontline already covered the same issue, Levinson instead decided to use the research to produce a horror film which he hoped would shed light on the issues facing Chesapeake.^[5] As such when promoting the film he noted that it's "80 percent factual information."^[6]

According to script writer Michael Wallach, the script originally started out as a short story about a young couple who comes across a dead town. After having pieced together what happened from footage scattered across town, they realize the town had not fully died yet.^[7] Barry was happy with the script, and sent Wallach the movie JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America and asked if the movie could be made into a documentary.^[7]

Levinson chose to use the found footage format after thinking about the Pompeii disaster^[5] and noting that if such a disaster happened today there would be much more evidence of what happened with him telling Yahoo! "For the very first time in history, you can get a picture of that town, if you collect all the footage from everyone's cell phones and their digital cameras and the Skypes, and the texting and everything else"^[6] A byproduct of the format was that much of the footage was able to be shot by the actors themselves as opposed to a more traditional camera crew. According to Levinson roughly one third of the film was shot this way.^[5]

Though the film is set in Levinson's home state of Maryland, it was shot on locations in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Reception[]

The film has received mostly positive reviews from critics, with a 76% "certified fresh" approval rating and an average rating of 6.6 out of 10 on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 82 reviews.^[8] The website's critical consensus states that "Barry Levinson's eco-horror flick cleverly utilizes familiar found-footage methods in service of a gruesome yet atmospheric chiller." It also holds a score of 65 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 20 reviewers, indicating "generally favourable reviews".^[9] David Cox of The Guardian awarded the film 5 out of 5 stars and called it a "horror film for grown ups".^[10] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, however, was less positive, awarding the film 2.5 out of a possible 4, stating "Although there are some scary moments here, and a lot of gruesome ones, this isn't a horror film so much as a faux eco-documentary".^[11]

References[]

External links[]

• The Bay at IMDb
• The Bay at Rotten Tomatoes