Review of The Bay (2012)

Okay, let me begin by saying SPOILER ALERT: I will ruin this movie for you if you haven't seen it yet. If you don't care to see it, or you've already seen it, read on. If you do want to see it, STOP READING. That being said, I must say that I was cussing excited to see this movie. This is a picture of me arriving home with the last copy of The Bay from the movie rental store: 

 Ignoring my animals’ need for stupid things like food and attention, I popped in the DVD, absolutely thrilled that I was finally going to see what this movie had in store for me. And holy cuss, was I ever wrong about a movie. This is a picture of me after the credits started rolling:

 I’ve never been more disappointed in a horror movie (with the exception of The Sentinel, but that’s for another day). Let’s start with a quick synopsis: “The Bay” is a film shot “found footage,” or POV style, and it recounts one incident in a small Maryland town that sits on the Chesapeake Bay area. The main character, Donna Thompson (played by Kether Donohue) is a local news reporter who is covering the events on this particular day. The town holds a huge Independence Day festival and everyone in the town attends. Everything seems to be going hunky dory when all of the sudden there is an outbreak of epic proportions. People start to get sick and die very quickly. First they develop rashes and boils on their skin, and then they basically explode from the torso out. Which made me kinda think:

 Anywho, it turns out that the town relies heavily on chicken farms, and their excrement gets into the water supply, and that mixes with nuclear waste coming from their local plant. That makes the local tongue-eating louse population grow and reproduce faster than normal. They get into the Bay area and start feeding on the people that decide to take a quick dip in the Bay. If you’ve never seen a tongue-eating louse, they’re absolutely frightening. So here’s a picture!
 
You can read more about tongue-eating louses here. So whoever is exposed to the water in the movie gets a mouthful of these guys, and they grow inside of the person and eventually explode out of them, looking for a new host I guess. And of course no one comes to the town’s aid because hey, that wouldn’t make any sense now, would it? The government basically brushes off the problem and doesn't save anyone (as the government always does in disaster movies, like The Crazies and Quarantine). There’s no real conclusion to the movie, it just kind of ends on a “the town was quarantined for three days, the end” note. So let’s get down to the nitty gritty here. I’ll start with the pro’s to the movie:
PROS:

1. The actual outbreak was super accurate and felt very real. If something happened that quickly in one small town, I believe that it would have happened the way the movie did. It would come quickly and without warning, and the very first time you see someone get sick is truly uncomfortable and disturbing.

2. They used something real as the culprit. They weren’t aliens; it wasn’t some germ that turns people into zombies. Tongue eating louses are very real, and though they don’t feed on humans in real life, they are so vicious and merciless to fish that it was easy to believe that they would do the same to humans.

Believe it or not, those are the only pro’s that I had. NOW on to the fun stuff.
CONS:

1.       Kether Donohue was extremely disappointing as a main character. In fact, the acting in general just sucked. Everyone was so nonchalant about what was going on, and even when Donohue was remembering what happened that day, she didn’t once change the tone of her voice or had any emotion behind what she was saying. It felt like the whole movie featured a ton of Kristen Stewarts. 

2. The first woman to become sick runs around the whole town asking for help, and NO ONE comes to help her. Really? An entire town of 6,000 people doesn't help one lady out? She hadn't even gotten the bad symptoms yet! She looked like she was sunburned at worst, and people were running away from her like she was a rabid crazy woman. It didn't make any sense to me.

3.       This movie treats the audience like they’re idiots. Once you find out what the symptoms are, and what’s causing the outbreak, they don’t let you forget it. Every time someone comes across a dead body, they have to say “boils! Fever! Enlarged stomach! Exploded torso! No tongue! What happened here?!” Ugh. WE KNOW. They go over the tongue eating louses and how they work like, 10 times. It gets really annoying, and what’s worse, it loses the excitement and mystery that way.

4.       This is the only hour and a half movie that I’ve ever seen that felt like it was three hours long. The exciting parts are few and far between, and the stuff in between is very repetitive and very boring.

5.       The “found footage” looks way too expensive to be found footage. It’s like everyone from that town had a $5,000 video camera to work with, complete with boom mics and everything.

So there you have it, folks. It was an extremely disappointing horror movie that could have been amazing. I give it 2 out of 5 stars, just because of the special effects and story accuracy. I hope this has offered some insight into how I work and how these next few entries will go. I hope you all enjoyed it!