Whatever you do, don't dismiss The Bay as another "found footage" horror film, and lump it together with Apollo 18 or Paranormal Activity XX. While Levinson makes use of various "recovered" video sources, The Bay feels more like a documentary - an impossibly disturbing, throat-grabbing, make-it-stop documentary. It's been called an "eco-horror" film, due to the environmental underpinnings behind the horrific events depicted onscreen. DNA from Jaws and The Birds has been spliced together with that of Forks Over Knives. Given that the threat in The Bay is actually something real, with just the tiniest and all too believable sci-fi nudge, it's one of the most unsettling films I've seen in a while. If you've become jaded by bad horror and need a mainline jolt of the real McCoy, don't let yourself miss The Bay - but fair warning: you won't be able to get the toothpaste of anxiety back in the tube once it's been squeezed out.
Huge kudos to Barry Levinson, who's made a stunning career departure here with the vigor of a filmmaker a third his age. It's almost hard to fathom that this is the same director who shot Diner, The Natural and Rain Man. He's done some intense work before (TV's Homicide and Sleepers), but nothing like this. It's like he had a lifelong dream to run amok with a low budget and just scare the holy hell out of people. Levinson is a Maryland man through and through, and one can't help but feel that his disgust over what's happened to his beloved Chesapeake Bay is what got him so fired up to make this movie.
The Bay is available at home OnDemand - same day as theaters - and it's very, very much worth seeking out. It delivers the goods like crazy and no fan of the genre should miss it. But I'd label it with a strong warning - The Bay is one of the most disturbing films you'll see this year. Don't drink the water.
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