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]

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]

Plot

This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (September 2022)

The opening text explains the footage shown in the film was confiscated by the U.S. government until an anonymous source leaked it for the entire world to see.

Claridge, a seaside Chesapeake Bay town nestled on Maryland's Eastern Shore, thrives on its water supply, both from tourism and from how it benefits the chicken industry. However, the chicken farm has come under fire from some citizens who are concerned about the quality of the bay due to the dumping of chicken excrement and other toxins into the water, though Mayor John Stockman, who is eager to further Claridge's burgeoning economy and to be re-elected that year, insists the water is perfectly safe. Despite Stockman's attempts to reassure the public, as rookie reporter Donna Thompson covers the July 4th celebration, dozens of citizens fall ill with severe lesions without explanation; participants of a crab-eating contest also all begin to vomit violently. Dr. Jack Abrams, the head of the Atlantic 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 town descends into chaos as people begin dying en masse within hours. Days prior, a teenage couple were killed by an unknown animal while swimming. Several citizens, including a teenager named Jennifer using FaceTime to stay in contact with a friend, report bizarre symptoms, including the feeling of bugs in their bodies. Stockman however continues to downplay and deny the situation.

It is revealed that two oceanographers discovered high toxicity levels in the bay months beforehand. After encountering multiple eviscerated fish eaten from the inside out, they realized that the true culprit was massive, mutated tongue-eating lice. The isopods have seemingly evolved to affect humans due to the high volume of chicken excrement; the chickens having been fed steroids to promote rapid growth. Because of this, the isopods breed and proliferate at a massive rate, killing off millions of fish and causing 40% of the bay to become lifeless. The boils and lesions are the result of the isopods eating their hosts from the inside out. The oceanographers attempted to alert the city's environmental council, but Stockman, who heads the committee, ignored the warnings. The oceanographers were eventually killed by a swarm of fully-grown isopods (who also killed the teenagers) while doing further research, and their bodies are discovered shortly before the film's events. Still, they are initially written off as victims of a shark attack.

Stephanie and Alex Talmet, along with their infant son Andrew, sail to Claridge to meet up with Stephanie's parents for the festivities, 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. This results in Stephanie missing a call from her mother warning her of the situation in the town and that her father may have to have his leg amputated, as well as having lesions herself. Stephanie and Alex then witness a sailboat drifting aimlessly through the bay with no one on it, possibly due to the occupant succumbing to the isopods and falling into the water. Meanwhile, two deputies who have been overcome with calls of people dying, receive complaints of citizens screaming in pain; in a digitally enhanced audio recording, Deputy Jimson encounters an infected family begging to be killed. Having gone insane from seeing what has happened, he euthanizes them and subsequently murders his partner, Deputy Paul, after one of the isopods bites him. After being confronted by Sheriff Lee Roberts and Stockman, Jimson is also revealed to be covered in lesions; he then kills Roberts and himself. Stockman, in a moment of cowardice, attempts to flee in Roberts' police car, only to be killed in a car accident. On-screen text states he could have survived his fatal injuries, but no EMS vehicles were available to help.

Officials at the CDC eventually learn that the water in Claridge contained a slew of toxins and likely had a considerable radioactive rating, but it was never reported due to radioactivity not being measured in water quality checks by the EPA. Upon figuring out about the mutated isopods, the CDC head calls the White House. He then tells Dr. Abrams that it is already too late, no additional help is forthcoming, and that he and the staff should evacuate. Abrams reveals he is all that is left as the staff vacated a while back, but refuses to leave. Upon realizing that he too is now infected, Abrams uses his final hours to document the mass of dead bodies within the hospital, among whom is Jennifer, and to fully explain the situation about the parasites. Meanwhile, the CDC contacts Homeland Security, who reveal that they themselves had received the report about the oceanographers beforehand, but did not report it to the CDC immediately due to not wanting to cause undue panic; they write off the chaos as happening in a "small town" and declines to offer help.

Donna and her cameraman Jim Hoyt continue to document the carnage despite her station's blog being shut down by the FBI. They frequently hear horrific screams and find bloody corpses; one of which has its entire lower jaw and tongue gone, yet is still alive. Donna in narration reveals that after the incident, she never reported anything else and that Jim later died, likely due to having splashed pool water on his face to cool off. Stephanie and Alex arrive to find the town mostly deserted, with corpses littering the street. Horrified and confused, they go into a pawnshop and manage to get ahold of their friend Bill on Skype to ask for help. However, Alex, who swam in the bay earlier, realizes he has lesions on his neck when Bill points them out. He quickly dies from isopods crawling out of his neck, while Stephanie is able to escape unharmed with Andrew, though they are frightened by a still-living woman hiding in a police car who begs for help before Stephanie hits her, accidentally snapping her neck.

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 (including Donna) in exchange for silence. She then reveals that Stephanie is still living, 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 favorable 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

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