The Bay

Another Creature-Feature Friday and I find myself watching, The Bay.

I was hopeful for this one. But I have grown weary of the documentary or found-footage style of filming for horror movies. Blair Witch Project did it super well and there have been a few in recent years that were also done well. However, I'm done with them. They always have the same arc of storytelling and this one is no different. The movie had a good idea, and was executed fairly well. The whole story is narrated by an ex-junior reporter that witnessed the horrific events in Claridge, Massachusetts on July 4th of 2009. She is only coming forward now because the government has covered up all evidence of the events. I found her to be very annoying and at times the narration introduced characters that were never developed apart from explaining they never made it through the night and the whole thing detracted from the overall story. 

Our annoying narrator

It took an ecological and political stance on pollution in Chesapeake Bay. It is a real concern that this important estuary is dying from the effects of human influence. Industrial and farm waste run-off have created areas known as "marine dead zones" because algal blooms create hypoxic environments - the oxygen levels are so low that no life can be supported. These dead zones fluctuate and different areas are affected from year to year. In the film the little fictional town of Claridge, dumps millions of tons of chicken waste into the bay each day. When a couple of marine scientists do some research and discover parasites in fish, the mayor doesn't heed their warning because he doesn't want to cause a panic in the town and he is a greedy SOB. This is a little bit where it fell apart for me and the eco-horror theme became heavy-handed. The people in the town are infected by a mutated version of Cymothoa exigua through the water in the Bay. These creatures do exist, and anyone surfing the net in 2009 or recently would have seen the image posted below (as well as the one of a giant isopod also used in the film). They are a species of isopod that parasitizes fish by eating their tongues and then replacing the fish's tongue with themselves. Gross and cringe-inducing? Yes. But the film touts that the steroids from the chicken excrement in the water mutated them in a way that they infect and kill humans. Scary, but really far-fetched in my opinion. More something out of a 1950s radiation-crazed science fiction film. In fish, the isopods sort of live harmoniously. It is beneficial for them to keep the fish alive, and not devour it from the inside out. Yet, the mutated versions do that to humans. 

A scientist examines a fish with parasites

Cymothoa exigua, or tongue-eating louse

Giant Isopod

Even though it takes place in one town because of their chicken waste, how come the isopods don't spread to other towns surrounding the Bay Why did all of it occur so quickly on a single day, killing hundreds in the community, but sparing others? If they are just infecting people through their parasitic larval stage in the water of the Bay, I don't see how they wouldn't be able to infect everyone that swims or drinks the water. I also found it akin to Frogs since it all happened on a July 4th celebration, but whereas Frogs had a better build up to the amphibian vengeance, this one kind of fell flat. I think Barry Levinson had good intentions. He tried to make people aware of the woes in Chesapeake Bay through scaring them - he just didn't have enough believable science backing it. 

My rating:

More late reviews that I apologize for, but I appreciate those that haven't given up and keep checking in!