The Bay

The Bay is a 2012 American mockumentary horror film directed by Barry Levinson and written by Michael Wallach, based on an original story created by the duo. 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. To date, it is Levinson's only horror film. 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 tremendously, killing off millions of fish and causing 40% of the bay to become lifeless. The lesions result from the isopods eating their hosts from the inside out. The oceanographers attempted to alert city authorities, but the mayor, John Stockman, ignored the warnings. A swarm of fully-grown isopods eventually killed the oceanographers, and their bodies were discovered shortly before the film's events.