More than just a good eco-horror flick with documental-style direction, The Bay is a fantastic examination of the political intrigue brewing beneath the "community-interest" campaign while constantly leaving us breathless with some visually impressive elements of horror and shocking discoveries.
This movie is friggin creepy in a whole new way. It made my damn skin crawl, and it takes a lot to make my skin crawl. I really have nothing bad to say about it, it kept me intrigued right from the beginning. I guess if I have anything bad to say it's that it felt a little preachy in terms of environmentalism, but I don't hold that against it. If you're looking for a decent scare and intriguing story, The Bay is right for you.
The Bay is Barry Levinson's most engaged and entertaining movie since "Wag the Dog," which isn't to say that he's given up his irksome predilection for a certain bullish type of liberalism.
The Oscar-winning director of "Rain Man" - whose last film, the abysmal documentary "PoliWood" never went much further than the Tribeca Film Festival - demonstrates he can make a shakycam found-footage horror movie every bit as fake-looking, clumsy and unscary as your average college student working on a $200 budget.
La historia es muy buena, la cual se sostiene con imágenes bastante grotescas y convincentes, no es aterradora, pero si un poco incómoda por lo explícita que se torna a veces, se siente lenta pero no aburrida, sin embargo, la chica que narra los hechos es menos carismática que una piedra y el conjunto completo de la historia carece de un buen y congruente hilo conductor.
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+]
Great idea, mediocre execution: a found footage 'monster disaster' flick. But despite some pretty good shocks and a great start, the whole thing feels unorganized and cobbled together, with no payoff whatsoever. It's low budget for sure and it surprisingly came from Levinson, a renowned Oscar caliber director. Could have come from any young upstarts out there.
The mockumentary is definitely the kind of movie more risky to turn, this is because, since the low-budget film, must contain within them the ideas and above all they must be able to entertain with little. Sometimes, in fact, are produced movie brilliant and interesting (an example would be "The Blair Witch Project"), sometimes authentic cinematic abortions as the aforementioned "The bay". Eighty endless minutes of events that happen at random, without a logical thread, but especially with such a mess that makes you a headache.
Obviously, the film critic has expressed a positive opinion on the movie, because you know that it is no longer the actual product to be judged but the high-sounding name of the artist who produces it, but you do not need to be critical to understand that "The Bay" is probably one of the worst films in the history of cinema.
The Bay carries on from where Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity left. Unfortunately it doesn't add anything new to the "lost footage"- horror genre that is already beaten to death. Characters lack depth, acting is mediocre at best, the story is inconsistent and offers nothing further to keep it interesting.