The production of Hollywood movies and the way in which they are commissioned is so brazenly exploitative they would make a pimp blush. Even a respected old hand like
Barry Levinson (Rain Man) is not immune from such realities as his new film, a eco-horror thriller
The Bay, demonstrates. A combination of the found footage type of cinema that is extremely cheap to make and particularly suited to suspenseful/horror type genre pieces, as well as the sort of ecological based threat that sees the dying planet we live on used as a basis for more fantastical manifestations.
chronicles a horrifying biological disaster that arises from the Chesapeake Bay -- an isopod parasite that carries an untreatable disease. As it jumps from fish to the humans in a small town, the victims capture the terror on home videos and the web.
Concerns of avarice aside, however, Levinson has a suitable weighty CV to create something substantive with such trendy gestalt material, and producers like Jason Blum, Steven Schneider and Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity, Insidious) are unlikely to have acquired the rights to an original screenplay by a first time writer (
Michael Wallach) if they didnt have some confidence in its worth. A confidence that appears to have been entirely well placed as
The Hollywood Reporter say Lionsgate have acquired the films distribution rights in the United States and are, characteristically, over- enthusiastic about the ventures future success:
Ingenious genre films are and always will be a specialty at Lionsgate. The Bay is a shining example of the kind of truly fresh horror film that audiences are always ready for, and that we excel at eventizing with them. Thanks to Barry, well all be afraid to go in the water for years to come.
This was the comment from the company president
Joe Drake, who, if otherwise predictable in his sentiments, deserves a certain amount of credit for having made up the gloriously nauseating expression eventizing. Other staff that worked on the film included Levinson Mythodic Films, who assisted Blum, Schneider and Peli with the production, and the executive producers consisted of Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Jason Sosnoff, Colin Strause and Greg Strause. Canadian and European distribution will be taken care of by Alliance Pictures in association with IM Global.