The Bay

This film made me scared not because it had actual scares, but because it was realistic on so many levels! This could happen! The way it made sense was the most chilling thing about it. I went in expecting it to be another flick about some kind of a virus or a biological weapon, etc. To my surprise, it was way simpler than that and much more terrifying! Very recommended.

I liked it. Most horror movies depend on something supernatural and implausible to get their chills, but this one makes only modest science-fiction leaps from real ecological problems facing Chesapeake Bay to something truly creepy. Sure, its innocents-at-risk central subplot is hokey, but what do you expect from a horror movie? (We all need someone to identify with.) I think its use of the found-footage technique, by which it pretends to be a documentary, increases both its plausibility and its scariness. I can't judge how well or how fairly it publicizes the ecological problems facing Chesapeake Bay, but it makes for a zinger of a horror movie.

A small town on the coast of Maryland has a bizarre outbreak of some kind in the middle of their 4th of July festivities. The symptoms are strange, disgusting, and quickly don't add up. The hospital can't figure out what it is. Within 24 hours the town is in chaos, surrounded by the national guard, and quarantined. A small town novice reporter was on scene covering the 4th of July and she describes what happened with the help of her own camera footage as well as other digital evidence pieced together from a variety of sources.

It has some of that Blair Witch camera work which I normally despise, but for this documentary style flick it worked really well and I think this is the best example of its genre I've seen.

The thing about this is that once we come to understand the origin of this outbreak it sounds like something that really could happen. The chain of events that cascaded into this disaster was surprisingly complex and at the same time very on point with the risks industrialization poses to the environment and to us! I don't think I've seen a threat in a horror movie this well thought out in many years. It all made sense once you understood what was happening but it definitely comes out of a blind spot in the horror realm.

This is not simply a mutated flesh eating infection, a curse, or anything quite so simple but neither does it have the histrionic level drama that some horror junkies need these days. This is weird horror in the realm of the real.

I never thought I'd say this, but I was glad when I found little discrepancies in the portrayal of the collapse of the infrastructure, hospital and police procedures, etc. While watching it, my mind was going into overdrive trying to find reasons that 'this isn't real; this really couldn't happen like this.' There were a couple of scenes that were chilling in how similar they were to actual news stories. I felt an emotional outpouring of sympathy for the victims. It was like watching one of these catastrophes like hurricane Katrina or hurricane Sandy where you just feel so bad for the people involved. Of course the difference was this was a bit more bloody and once you come to understand the nature of the biological danger it goes to a whole new level of revulsion.

I kind of wanted to see holes in it to find some respite from the growing anxiety. I felt like some of those holes were there in a couple of gratuitous shock value scenes that fell a little flat, and in the response from the government. But when you look at the lack of response hurricane Katrina got in the first 24 hours…maybe one of those holes isn't so big after all, though the conspiracy-style cover-up in the movie was a bit much.

All in all, this film will make your skin crawl!

This isn't your average, run of the mill low budget "found footage" or "suppressed footage" horror film. The budget is large and the acting is spot on for what is needed to tell the tale. Think of this more as a ecological disaster/thriller than a straight horror film. Reminds me of the nature run amok sub genre films of the late seventies and early eighties. Without any preaching about how we are destroying the environment. As the story unfolds, the tension mounts as does the fear and dread. The horror is amplified by the constant reminder that everything presented here could actually happen or has happened. In fact mid-way through I kept wondering if there was an actual tragedy that this film was loosely based upon. All told the film is well paced, competently shot with solid acting and makes full use of the "found footage" style. Highly recommended for both horror fans and the occasional horror film watcher.

.. I just feel if this has been filmed in a traditional way rather than going down the found footage route, it would have been even better, although to be fair, as found footage films go, this is my second favourite, my favourite being the Brit chiller 'The Borderlands'.

There's nothing outlandish in the storyline, all seems quite plausible, and the way it's done all seems believable.

The special effects are rather convincing, and often quite gory.

Acting is first rate, and have to say watching it in 2023, seems to have given the film an added edge. Having been to a beach resort recently and seeing things floating in the water I'd rather I hadn't, it does make you wonder about our oceans.

Definitely worth a watch.