The Bay Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A small town is overrun by mutated parasites found in the drinking water during a 4th of July celebration.

Review: I think this may be an indication that the found-footage genre is losing its momentum with a mediocre and pointless entry in the form of "The Bay." Right from the moment the film begins you're already removed from any sense of fear or the unknown as this movie makes the same mistake "The Tunnel" made by having characters discussing the events you're about to watch. Why would you reveal ahead of time what characters live instead of leaving the audience wondering? I get that they're going for realism, but it didn't work in "The Tunnel" either and that actually had some scary scenes to make up for the lack of mystery while this film was more of a monster flick. On top of that massive blunder, we have a premise that was not entirely thought through or they idiotically ignored the implausibility of the plot in favor of it looking cool. Essentially, the story is that these real life parasites, that latch onto fish and replace their tongue, have been mutated by various pollution in the water so that they are slightly bigger than a cockroach. The town recently installed a distillation center or something like that and the people begin drinking the eggs of the parasites which leads to them hatching and eating their way out of the host. Now I don't know how the eggs would live to maturity in the host, but what bothered me most was the fact that everyone in the town seems to break out with these things at the exact same time on the 4th of July! So everyone drank eggs that exact same day? They all grew and burst out at almost the exact same moment?! I get that it needed to work somewhat this way for movie purposes but throw in a line about how there was a mistake at the distillation center that day or some kind of explanation or it becomes stupid. The final aspect that hurt the film is this general sense of not really going anywhere; once the initial shock and awe is over, the film just sort of goes on showing various people with the parasites ripping through them. The ending felt abrupt and left me wondering what was the point to even making the movie as a mock-documentary? There was also an unforgivable and senseless zinger thrown into the end for no reason but as a cheap jump scare. On the other hand, there are some decent scenes and it did feel kind of real which is what they were going for most I suppose. It's not that this film is bad necessarily, but it just felt so pointless and would have been better as just a normal movie and not a wannabe documentary. I would say this film is just barely worth a view and only if you're a fan of these kind of films.

Notable Moment: When the one couple with the baby arrives in town only to discover that it appears deserted. There is a nice haunting atmosphere created.

Final Rating: 5/10