Reviews by:
@terrordetective
RATE THIS MOVIE
6
5
4
3
Watched Barry Levinson’s The Bay’ (2012) last night - the found footage eco-horror flick about waterborne parasites (isopods) that mutate into cockroach-sized carnivorous bugs that attack the residents of an all-American harbor town off the Chesapeake Bay. While the cause of the mutation isn’t identified explicitly, there are a couple suggested culprits: run-off from the local chicken farm which houses steroid-pumped poultry and massive mounds of their dung; a leaking nuke plant. What is made clear: Mr. Mayor (Frank Deal) will do anything to boost the local economy, and summer tourism will NOT be interrupted by anything other than an environmental disaster that kills the whole community. Love Canal meets Jaws.
This faux eco-doc starts strong. I like the premise, which (one quick Internet search later) is semi-factual. This movie started as a documentary about the diminishing ecological health of the Chesapeake, but morphed into a fictionalized horror film after Levinson decided the story had been covered admirably by news outlets.
So the premise is good. And the cast does fine work bringing it to life. I also like the use of various media sources (cell phones, Skype meetings, handheld cams) to tell the tale. It’s a clever way to present multiple perspectives. Anchoring all the footage around a suppressed video shot by professional news reporters is a good way to eliminate the shaky cam problem that plagues so many found footage flicks. That said, I feel like all the hard work went into crafting the first half of this flick. The second was allowed to disintegrate into nonsensical and less entertaining tangents. Bummer. Still worth watching tho.
RATE THIS REVIEW
6
5
4
3
Comments