#MichaelWallach

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Bay (2012)

What director Barry Levinson attempts to do in The Bay is admirable but ultimately, it's the end results that matter. This horror movie fails to scare like it should.

Shot as a documentary, The Bay splices together footage from multiple sources to tell us of the disaster that happened in Claridge on July 4th, 2009. It all started when a couple of researchers discovered something weird in the gills and stomach of a fish in the nearby lake...

With a few exceptions, all found-footage horror films feel contrived. The objective of shooting a movie in this format, particularly when it's assembled to look like a documentary is to seem credible. The Bay never feels real. Its "testimonies" are filled with inconsistencies, cheap scares, and unexplainable behavior. From a production standpoint, it's filled with bad decisions.

This first criticism might sound like a nitpick, but it's crucial to make a movie like this work. Look at The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity. What do they have in common? A single point of view. This allows you to put yourself in the shoes of the person filming and lets the terror sink in. This feeling is out of reach but The Bay is trying something different. Fine. The premise is that many pieces of footage are being spliced together to unveil what "really happened" after hundreds of deaths were covered up by the government. Let's throw the film another bone and say a black bag this big could plausibly exist in an age where the internet exists. There are a dozen different viewpoints compiled together to make this film. Hospital security cameras, cellphones, camcorders, internet messaging services, police dashboard cameras, news footage, and more. How could a crew of people get a hold of all of these video testimonies, particularly the security and police footage if the government is determined to cover everything up?

Less context would've been helpful to the film, as this does not feel like a documentary. If you're trying to expose or document the truth, you ask questions, scout locations, confront people that were there, and shooting new footage to show the aftermath of what happened. There are no such shots in The Bay, making the whole thing look as though it was put together by amateurs, which might've actually been the intent.

Over and over, cheap scares are served up. It’s a documentary, right? So why do we have musical stings whenever someone suddenly jumps into frame? Is the goal to expose the liars or make teenagers squeal? It's bad throughout and makes sure to save the worst for last.

The Bay is a king-sized letdown. Read up on cymothoa exigua. It'll give you the willies. The idea of a parasite that replaces your tongue infesting a town and then taking it over while people scramble to figure out what to do should be dynamite. As the puzzle is pieced together, poor souls fall over dead as a deluge of full-grown bugs erupts from their mouths. A great opportunity for some gory deaths and the kind of material that'll make your skin itch for weeks. That's not what you get. There isn’t even any consistency as to how quickly or how people die once infected. I know if twinkie-sized creatures were eating me from the inside, my screams of pain wouldn’t start moments before they emerge out of my throat... I’d be howling in agony hours before!

The only way The Bay could be frightening is if it was mildly believable and it isn't. People don’t act like people, there are cheap plot points throughout, the scares are weak, the story badly told... the only thing worthwhile about this film is the premise. (On DVD, February 18, 2015)