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The Bay is a 2012 American mockumentary horror film directed by Barry Levinson and written by Michael Wallach. It stars Kether Donohue, Nansi Aluka, Christopher Denham, Frank Deal, and Kristen Connolly and premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released in theaters on November 2, 2012.
Plot[]
The opening text explains the footage shown in the film was confiscated by the U.S. government until an anonymous source leaked it for the entire world to see.
Claridge, a town located on Maryland's Eastern Shore, thrives on its water supply. However, the nearby chicken farm has come under fire for polluting the Chesapeake Bay due to the dumping of chicken excrement and other toxins into the water. As rookie reporter Donna Thompson covers a local Fourth of July celebration, dozens of citizens fall violently ill and exhibit severe lesions. Dr. Jack Abrams, the head of the Atlantic Hospital, is overwhelmed with patients and contacts the Centers for Disease Control, who initially believe the issue to be caused by a viral outbreak. The town descends into chaos as people begin dying en masse within hours. Several citizens, including a teenager named Jennifer, use FaceTime to report bizarre symptoms, including the feeling of bugs in their bodies.
Months beforehand, two oceanographers discovered high toxicity levels in the bay. After encountering multiple eviscerated fish eaten from the inside out, they realized that the true culprit was massive, mutated tongue-eating lice. The isopods have evolved to affect humans due to the high volume of chicken excrement dumped into the bay, the chickens having been fed steroids to promote rapid growth. Because of this, the isopods proliferate at a massive rate, killing off millions of fish and causing 40% of the bay to become lifeless. The lesions are the result of the isopods eating their hosts from the inside out. The oceanographers attempted to alert city authorities, but the mayor, John Stockman, ignored the warnings. The oceanographers were eventually killed by a swarm of fully-grown isopods, and their bodies are discovered shortly before the film's events.
The Talmet family sail to Claridge, unaware of the danger as the town has been forcibly quarantined and local law enforcement has shut down cell towers. Unbeknownst to the family, wife Stephanie's parents have been affected by the isopods. Meanwhile, two deputies, Jimson and Paul answer a call concerning someone screaming in pain; in a digitally enhanced audio recording, Jimson encounters an infected family begging to be killed. Having gone insane from seeing what has happened, he euthanizes them and subsequently murders Paul after one of the isopods bites him. After being confronted by Stockman and Sheriff Lee Roberts, the lesion-covered Jimson kills Roberts and himself. Stockman attempts to flee in Roberts' police car, only to be killed in a car accident.
The CDC eventually learns that the water in Claridge likely has a considerable radioactive rating, which had gone unreported. Upon learning about the mutated isopods, the CDC contacts the White House. Dr. Abrams is told that no additional help is forthcoming and that he and the staff should evacuate. Abrams reveals that he is the sole surviving staff member at the hospital, but refuses to leave. Upon realizing that he too is now infected, he uses his final hours to document the mass of dead bodies within the hospital, among whom is Jennifer. Meanwhile, the CDC contacts the Department of Homeland Security, who reveal that they themselves had received the report about the oceanographers but did not report it immediately due to not wanting to cause undue panic; they write off the chaos as happening in a "small town" and refuse to offer help.
Donna and her cameraman, Jim Hoyt, continue to document the carnage despite her station's blog being shut down by the FBI. Donna, in narration, reveals that after fleeing Claridge she never reported anything else and that Jim later died. The Talmets arrive to find the town mostly deserted, with corpses littering the street. Horrified, they manage to contact a friend Bill on Skype to ask for help. However, Alex, who swam in the bay earlier, realizes he has lesions on his neck when Bill points them out. He quickly dies from isopods crawling out of his neck, while Stephanie is able to escape unharmed with infant son Andrew. They are frightened by a still-living woman hiding in a police car who begs for help before Stephanie hits her, accidentally snapping her neck.
Years later, Donna leaks the gathered footage, revealing that the government managed to kill the isopods by filling the water with chlorine; they then covered up the incident as the result of "unusually high water temperatures" and paid off the few survivors (including Donna) in exchange for silence. She then reveals that Stephanie is still living but refused to participate in the film. The movie ends with shots of civilians innocently enjoying the water of the bay, unaware of the dangers, as 40% of the bay remains lifeless.