The Bay (2012)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Powerful

Nice effects though.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

From a technical point of view, this is one of the better "found footage" films to date. It uses various cameras from various locations and quality. Donna "my pants are too tight" Thompson (Kether Donohue) is reporting, and not too well, on the July 4th activities in the bay town of Claridge, Md. Everything is fun and games until people start to blister and die.The film is told as a bad documentary by design. It managed to hold my interest for 45 minutes at which point I started to get bored, even with the material they weren't repeating. The film utilizes real facts about Chesapeake Bay and isopods as well as actual footage of the creatures which you think are fake.The idea was to draw attention to the problem of the bay because no one watched the Frontline documentary on poisoned waters and even fewer people cared (from director's interview). The problem is that the terror created by isopods didn't come across as terrifying as I found my self concentrating Donohue's tight pants trying to will a button to pop.I enjoyed the realism more in this film than the "Paranormal" series. I also liked the idea of bringing a message to the film. Now if we could take the next step and make it entertaining. This could be done with a witty soundtrack and/or clever dialogue. Maybe having Trey Parker/Matt Stone smoking a joint saying, "Dudes they're isopods, not Crab People."Parental Guide: F-bombs (spoken and text). No sex or nudity. Tight pants that the button never pops.

So this review is for people that have seen the show. Interesting premise on the chicken sh** being dropped into the water, for the people who have posted here for a long time not that the boards are down can you use a bland curse word? Anyway, that and getting the hyper growth of the concept of the parasites and bugs, whatever, becoming what they did and the mayor ignoring it a month before because of the 4th of July and the income of the city. I get it. Enlighten teens. Besides the mayor getting what he deserved for the all mighty American $ we worship.What ticks me off is having the ending just being it covered up and and just dropping a massive amount of chlorine and all is solved. Like none of the fish would be out of that area and spread that black bug and that many fish dead and human deaths in a American city would just be looked over in the national media.Interesting concept yet you have to finish a logical conclusion that is believable.

So after reading reviews before I watched I really thought it would be better than this.The acting was good but the pace of the film felt too slow, really spoon feeding the audience. And it wasn't even a very long film.But the plot really bothered me. It was so so...out there and ridiculous. I know this kind of thing can be difficult to convey realistically - but the concept of a disease or an outbreak had been managed before. Contagion was a good example of it being done fairly realistically. With this film there were just so many holes in the plot and odd choices being made by the characters.

Summary: I really liked The Bay, because it looked realistic and its plot is thought-provoking. 61/100 (C+)Directed by the academy award winner Barry Levinson and produced by Jason Blum, "The Bay" is an above-average, found-footage horror film. First, let me say that the trailer is great, the premise is terrific and Barry Levinson is a very talented director. The entire film feels quite genuine, the found-footage adds lots of veracity and the acting is quite good. I really liked the performance of the news reporter. Moving on, even though its running time is very short (84 min), it didn't deliver enough scares or entertainment to me. Everything was kind of boring, but I give it credit because it looked extremely real the whole time.I'm pretty sure that a huge part of the audience that disliked The Bay did not even try to understand the message of the movie. This ecological issue could actually happen in real life! It was so thought-provoking. Moving on, as I said the performances were great, just some extras were kinda weak. Kether Donohue's performance was excellent, she's a news reporter in the film and is documenting all the catastrophe in this little town; her character was dynamic and smart. In addition, she's not the only one important here, throughout the film we can see some scientists talking through Skype about this parasite and all these scenes were quite effective and interesting.Do not expect jump-scares or lots of gore. This movie is more about scientists, laboratories, death fishes, people infected in hospitals and stuff like that. The Bay boasts a thought-provoking story about public services, in this case water contaminated, eww. Levinson cares about the human perspective and he gives us some nice camera shots in hospitals and streets. He smartly uses a found-footage style to present us his intriguing tale. Although at times he forgot how to maintain the film entertaining, I was satisfied by the end of it. I remember that I kept looking at a glass of water for minutes thinking... where does it come from? How clean is it?It was very thrilling sometimes and it had two or three effective jump- scares, but two of them are in the trailer. A huge part of the scares and surprises were spoiled by the trailer, so please don't see it. Overall, it's one of the most believable found-footage films I've seen, even though it was not as entertaining as I thought. I only recommend it if you like documentaries or movies about ecological issues, pandemics or virus. The Bay is a horror film for a very specific audience, this is not that type of horror movie which you watch with some friends at night. I recommend you to see it alone, and judge it by yourself. (C+)