You won't be disappointed!

Touches You

That was an excellent one.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Taking advantage of horror movies available on amazon prime, this was a title I had passed over for many weeks. I only came back to it today after a slew of horrific-looking B movies and ancient alien/illuminati "documentaries" crapping up Amazon's horror section and this was one that didn't have a paranormal or Christian vibe to it so I checked it out. I was highly skeptical of it using apparently a real or a series of real events involving mass fish die-offs, as well as the slight emphasis on "big government coverup", although thankfully that aspect was not hammered on us so painfully as things like the discovery channel's Mermaids "mockumentary" movie which was 50% bad CG mermaids, 50% "the maaan keeping it suppressed, maaan". this film covers an apparently fictional event in a fictional Maryland town by Chesapeake Bay happening during the July 4 celebrations in 2009, as told via found footage and an interview with a novice reporter via skype who was on the scene at the time. When the "shiz going wrong" part arrives, it unfolds in a very disease-oriented way, focusing on the spread of horrid body lesions and sores on various people. Escalation from there seems to follow no clear pattern, and at one point I thought this was going to be a Zombie Outbreak type thing (I'm not personally against that sort of thing) while not explicitly suggesting otherwise with certain filmed events. What we get instead unfolds in a way that is realistic, at times highly technical, and beautifully paced, to a point where I felt I was near the end and wished the movie were twice as long. I just wanted more, even knowing that a bit more would probably spoil the experience or make it overly long. That's the first time a horror movie has ever made me feel that way.

"The Bay" (2012) deserves credit for its effort to give viewers a detailed and well developed, found-footage science fiction-horror movie. In depicting a brutal parasitic infection eradicating a small coastal town, writers Barry Levinson and Michael Wallach appear familiar with the basics of epidemiology and public health. And they make nice use of a time-honored sci-fi standby — pollutants causing small organisms to mutate into large ones.Levinson and Wallach are ambitious too. "The Bay" follows a number of intertwining narratives winding through the entire town, making use of more than a dozen actors and innumerable extras. Some of those actors are quite good — especially those portraying emergency professionals, like the local emergency room doctor, the staff for the Centers for Disease Control and the bureaucrat from the Department of Homeland Security. I think a story with this scope, and with this many characters, would have made a fine ecological techno-thriller novel. The filmmakers really do serve up a thoughtful, serious cautionary tale that is sometimes frightening.Despite its strengths, however, "The Bay" is still encumbered by some noticeable flaws. There's little structure to it, the pacing feels off, and we follow so many characters that it is hard for the viewer to get to know any one of them. There is a news reporter whose point of view serves as a framing device, but she's performed with little energy by the main actress, and her character isn't scripted to be terribly likable to begin with. Parts of the film feel redundant, too. Levinson (who is also the director here) keeps replaying footage and key dialogue, and it's a poor choice.All things considered, I'd rate "The Bay" a 7 out of 10.https://ericrobertnolan.wordpress.com/

I was surprised when I saw this scary movie was directed by Barry Levinson (Diner, The Natural; Good Morning, Vietnam, Rain Man), the description for it sounded good, and it was rated well by critics, so I was looking forward to whatever it had to offer. Basically the film opens explaining that the footage was confiscated by the U.S. government until an anonymous source leaked the footage for the entire world to see. On July 4th 2009, Independence Day, a seaside town in Claridge, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay, thrives on water and is ready to celebrate the annual Crab Festival. But two researchers find the water has a staggering level of toxicity, Mayor Stockman (Frank Deal) is alerted, but he refuses to take action fearing it will cause a panic, and the result is a deadly plague being unleashed. The outbreak is thought to have been caused by a combination of agricultural pesticides, random pollutants, and steroids-in-chicken-manure that have been dumped into the bay, whatever it is it has turned humans into hosts for a deadly, mutant breed of the parasite Cymothoa exigua, i.e. parasitic crustacean isopods. The creatures start infecting townspeople one by one, several stories are seen as the overwhelming chaos takes over, particularly local young inexperienced news reporter Donna Thompson (Kether Donohue) and her cameraman, who were reporting on the 4th of July festivities , she is also explaining the occurrences in an off-screen personal recording. Other stories seen include two oceanographers who first discovered the parasites, two police officers on duty investigating the residential area, a young unsuspecting couple swimming in the lake, a teenage girl sending a desperate message to a friend on FaceTime, Dr. Jack Abrams (Stephen Kunken) informing the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) of the developing situation at the local hospital, and a young married couple with an infant aboard sailing on a vessel toward the family home, unaware of the horrific unfolding events on the mainland. Also starring Will Rogers as Alex, The Cabin in the Woods' Kristen Connolly as Stephanie, Argo's Christopher Denham as Sam, Nansi Aluka as Jaquline, Kimberly Campbell as Nurse Rebecca, Beckett Clayton-Luce as Charles and Dave Hager as Fisher Jerry. The combination of "found footage" from news broadcasts, phone cameras, Skype, CCTV and webcam, accompanied by narration of the young newscaster, makes for an interesting take on the scary movie genre, you could call it a cross between Paranormal Activity and Jaws, and of course the special effects make up and little CGI to bring the isopods and their hideous body eating antic to life is fantastic, it is scary to think that isopods are real, it is well put together and definitely gives you the jitters, a terrific horror thriller. Very good!

I went into this movie with pretty low expectations, as one should do with any "found footage" movie. However I was pleasantly surprised by the time I had finished watching it. This movie, unlike most "found footage" movies is shown through many different POV's, ranging from hand-held camera, to dash-cams and even to FaceTime on a smart phone. It ends up coming off as more of a documentary with the implementation of found footage, which was a nice change as it added a bit of structure to the film.The fact that it isn't your typical jump-scare fest full of ghouls and ghosts is a nice change too. The horror genre is polluted with them. This movie will get under your skin using a realistic, albeit exaggerated, ecological disaster. You'll be sticking to imported bottles of water for a while to say the least.