The Lock Box: A Transfix With Netflix - The Bay (Spoilers)

The Bay

Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the movies I've seen on Netflix. Now, I'm no Roger and Ebert, but I do a good and bad movie when I see one, and Netflix is full of both. So, this is the first Netflix review that I will be doing, as well as giving them their own sub-category within my blog. We'll call it: The Lock Box: A Transfix With Netflix. Catchy, right?

So, here we go.

First one is a documentary-style horror movie titled, 'The Bay.' Now, a lot of people have an issue with the whole first-person style of  shooting; motion sickness, doesn't let you focus on what's going on in the scene, etc.

I, personally, have no issue with these types of films. In fact, I very much enjoy them as I allow myself to get caught up in the moment, along with the characters.

With The Bay, it's not so much a horror movie because there are people captured by aliens, hunted by monsters or even mutilated by satanic clowns. It's scary because, like Contagion, it's entirely plausible.

The main character, Donna(Kether Donohue), is an online, intern field reporter for the local news station. Just so we're clear, the only reason I don't call her our protagonist is simply because, with the way this story was told, there isn't really a good guy. There really isn't a bad guy or antagonist, either. That is, unless you consider the government or companies that see no issue with polluting our ecosystem the bad guy; I'll leave that one up for discussion. Back to the story.

It starts off with actual news footage of incidents that have happened with groups of animals and different types of species dying in a mysterious and unexplainable way, followed by Donna being interviewed via online chat by an unknown person.

Donna's basically our narrator throughout the entire film. She sets up the story with talking about what happened in the weeks leading up to the "present" time in the film. The whole movie is basically one great, big flashback.

Anyway, the film gives you some exposition as to why things are about to go south with an online eco-fighter noticing how close a local farm is dumping chicken crap to the city's nearest water source.

Citizens are shown vomiting after competing in a crab eating contest with crabs fished from, you guessed it, the local bay. Also shown are men, women and children, that have been in contact with the water, breaking out with horrible blisters and legions with no one wanting to get near them for fear of catching whatever it is they have.

Jane McNeill in The Bay

Things pretty much start going from bad to worse as we meet Dr. Abrams(Stephen Kunken), as he contacts the CDC(Center for Diseases Control and Prevention) regarding the recent outbreak in his town.

The story also centers around two oceanographers, Jaquline(Nansi Aluka) and Sam(Christopher Denham). The couple(I guess...?) are the first ones that discover the cause of death in the bay and also the films first deaths, as well. After examining a fish caught from the bay, they find a mutated isopod, later confirmed by the CDC to be Cymothoa exigua, in the belly of said fish, eating it's way out. Mutated you say? Yes, from an apparent runoff of chicken excrement I had covered previously.

That is when the CDC are provided with more information as they are told about a nuclear reactor leak, which happened all of the way back in 2002, that was never properly cleaned up.

At this point in the film, every worker in the hospital that are in direct contact with any patient that pours through their doors, are wearing contamination gear, complete with masks and gloves.

People, infected or not, are either trying to flee the town, or are just deciding on killing themselves and their loved ones from the sheer panic.

And with that, I will decide to stop and NOT spoil the ending and also because my skins crawling and I don't like that feeling.

Like I had said, what makes this flick scary, is that it's entirely plausible, right down to the reaction of the general public. Regardless of how shaky the camera is, or how much you believe it could or couldn't happen, The Bay really makes you at least think about what could potentially happen with pollution to our drinking water.

With character development lacking, I'm gonna give this flick 3/5 stars. Even though it hasn't received much love from viewers, I'm going to suggest you check it out for yourselves. Especially if you want to feel like bugs are crawling over your body. It's definitely an underrated movie, as far as the horror genre is concerned.

If you have any suggestions for movies that you would like me to cover and review, comment below and we'll see if I'm paying attention to you or not(kidding!).