Barry Levinson’s only horror film is a strange found footage film

Barry Levinson is not a name one typically associates with the horror genre. Oscar-winning director – He is best known for the films “Rain Man”, “Wag the Dog” and “Diner” – and was mostly inclined towards satirical comedies or films. Tense drama and thrillers Throughout his career. While preparing for a documentary about the pollution plaguing the Chesapeake Bay in 2012, Levinson decided to abandon the project in favor of a found footage eco-horror film that would mix fact and fiction to unsettling effect. That endeavor was “The Bay,” a mockumentary-style exploration of the seemingly prescient contagion hypothesis In the context of the post-pandemic world. Despite being the director’s only film in the horror world, Levinson reinvigorates the found footage subgenre by injecting it with one of the most primal fears accompanying the pandemic: the callous cruelty of willful inaction.

It is noteworthy that Levinson incorporated the scientific research of the abandoned Chesapeake documentary into the film’s narrative framework, and created an aura of authenticity by filming part of the footage with commonly used digital cameras. In an interview with Mother JonesLevinson explained how he had to take an unconventional approach to filmmaking to do justice to the inner workings of the found footage genre:

“We made this movie for $2 million, shot it in 18 days with a small crew using a lot of first-time actors, and used 21 different types of video cameras, including iPhones and cheap underwater video equipment, to make it look believable.” This led to a more complex editing process, and everything had to be planned and executed in one take.

The combination of reality-based truth and inspired imagination helped create something truly frightening, prompting a subtle suspension of disbelief that is perhaps one of “The Bay’s” greatest strengths. Although this overlooked horror film is not perfect, it should be scrutinized for its stark vision, coupled with its brutality and gruesomeness that bring uncomfortable near-real undertones to the surface.

In Levinson’s 2012 film, journalist intern Donna (Kether Donohue) is assigned to cover the Fourth of July celebration in Claridge, a quaint small town in Maryland that thrives on its water supply. Problems escalate when a local chicken farm is found dumping toxins that end up polluting the Chesapeake Bay, causing the townsfolk to fall ill and develop troubling physical symptoms. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is contacted once the situation gets out of control, but a combination of apathy and inaction makes things much worse. Waves wash up schools of dead fish on shore, injured people begin to drop dead after writhing in unimaginable pain, and dead birds begin hitting the bloody streets. Donna and her photographer witness these events firsthand, torn between them Documenting the horrors of the disaster in real time And absolute helplessness when faced with strange symptoms among infected people.

Not everything that unfolds on screen feels new or unique, but Levinson is able to use some clever metaphors to ratchet up the tension in an otherwise unpromising situation. Donna’s footage, later confiscated by the government and later leaked by a third party, is interspersed with frantic Skype calls, cellphone videos, and digital vlogs capturing the visceral, unverified nature of the epidemic. The physical horrors of pus-filled rashes, violent vomiting, and exploding guts add to the heightened narrative, with a couple of mutant creatures thrown in for good measure. No one knows what to do, and those who are in a position to do something, like Mayor Stockman (Frank Dale), seem most fearful at the prospect of losing Claridge’s tourists.

What I appreciate about “The Gulf” is that it brings environmental horror to the forefront, exposing our cruelty to the environment even as our transgressions corrupt the sanctity of life. There is more to this story than the revulsion it elicits, as we are forced to grapple with the evidence left behind by countless mini-vlogs and stuttering digital calls dissecting the nature of the outbreak. The shameful display of insensitive indifference that accompanies this disaster – both during and after it – is not pretty, and Levinson deliberately ends “The Bay” on this bitter and disconcerting note.