History Film / TheBay

* DangerTakesABackseat: To Stephanie and baby Andrew as they try to flee Claridge in an abandoned police car.

* GhostTown: By the Stephanie and Alex arrive in town at 9:26 PM, Claridge has been almost completely depopulated, bodies littering the streets; the only people left alive are lucky survivors like Donna and her cameraman - or victims who are in the process of succumbing.

* GreenAesop: The isopods mutate because of exposure to hormones in the farm runoff polluting the bay. The film reminds viewers that pollution can have a devastating impact on public health. In real life, the Chesapeake Bay has been polluted for decades by farm runoff, among other things.
* HazardousWater: Extremely hazardous - both from pollution and from [[spoiler:the mutated isopods]].

* ImprobableInfantSurvival: [[spoiler:Baby Andrew survives the day, despite - at one point - being right next to an infected victim with isopods creeping out of her.]]

* NoFEMAResponse: A rash of flesh-eating isopods is eating the inhabitants of an entire town, an incurable, horrifying epidemic that had the chief doctor of the local hospital increasingly desperate and pretty much begging the CDC for help. The government's response? Not provide him with a direct answer when he contacts them, quarantine the town for three days (with the implication that they are waiting for everybody infected by the isopods to be totally killed off) and conceal all information of the attack (to the point that Donna, who edited the "found footage", explicitly says that a bunch of hackers helped her obtain it and that she totally expects to be KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade once she releases it). To make things even worse, the implication is that the CDC would have been very glad to help with this situation, but ''Homeland Security'' decided to keep everything concealed.

* FamousLastWords:
** "No no no, [[spoiler:Jim]], wait, it's me, it's [[spoiler:Paul!]]" [[spoiler:Officer Paul]]
** "You don't have to die like this, sir." [[spoiler:Officer Jimson]]
** "Now, wait a minute. No! Deputy, put that gun down!" [[spoiler:Sheriff Lee Roberts]]

** At one point in the film, a fisherman pulls up a fish with [[spoiler:one of the mutant isopods in its mouth. He's holding the fish with his thumb in its mouth, and the isopod [[JumpScare lunges out and attacks his arm]], after which it scuttles off the deck with equally impressive speed. The real life speed of ''Cymothoa exigua'' is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg3IRJz6jZk rather less impressive.]] In addition, ''C. exigua'' feeds on blood, not flesh. Finally, while the two previous breaks from reality are probably justified by the fact that these are ''mutated'' isopods, there's the fact that real isopod larvae don't look like grubs. Isopods undergo hemimetabolism (incomplete metamorphosis), so an isopod larva looks like a tiny version of an adult.]]

* CorruptBureaucrat: Mayor John Stockman, who helped cause the crisis due to his authorizing of and downplaying the pollution of the bay and ignoring the signs of the sickness and the oceanographers' reports about the [[spoiler:parasites]] and negative affects of said pollution, resulting in the outbreak that ultimately dooms Clarisge.

* GhostTown: When Stephanie and Alex arrive, Claridge has been reduced to this.

* ImprobableInfantSurvival: [[spoiler:Baby Andrew survives.]]

* InfantImmortality: [[spoiler:Baby Andrew survives.]]

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: At one point in the film, a fisherman pulls up a fish with [[spoiler:one of the mutant isopods in its mouth. He's holding the fish with his thumb in its mouth, and the isopod [[JumpScare lunges out and attacks his arm]], after which it scuttles off the deck with equally impressive speed. The real life speed of ''Cymothoa exigua'' is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg3IRJz6jZk rather less impressive.]] In addition, ''C. exigua'' feeds on blood, not flesh. Finally, while the two previous breaks from reality are probably justified by the fact that these are ''mutated'' isopods, there's the fact that real isopod larvae don't look like grubs. Isopods undergo hemimetabolism (incomplete metamorphosis), so an isopod larva looks like a tiny version of an adult.]]
** Not to mention that [[spoiler:vertebrate hormones, even [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke biotechnologically altered ones]] probably wouldn't have much of an effect on crustaceans]].

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Mayor John Stockman]].
* AttackOfTheKillerWhatever: [[spoiler:Isopods.]]

* FacialHorror: When Donna and her cameraman discover a still-living victim whose tongue and lips have been eaten.

* InfantImmortality: Averted. While we don't see their deaths, a number of small children in the beginning footage have the blisters and rash. One of the ApocalypticLogs contains the deaths of two teenagers and we later see the body of Jennifer in Dr. Abrams's final video.
** Also played straight in that [[spoiler:baby Andrew survives.]]

%%* BloodFromTheMouth

** "No no no, [[spoiler:Jim]], wait, it's me, it's [[spoiler:Paul!]]" [[spoiler:Ifficer Paul]]
** "Deputy, put that gun down!" [[spoiler:Sheriff Lee Roberts]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The police chief has to remind Mayor Stockman to buckle his seat belt while riding in the police car. [[spoiler: The mayor later dies of injuries received after a car wreck.]]

* MercyKill: Officer Jimson does this to the infected inhabitants of a home he enters. [[spoiler: He also kills a fellow officer and the police chief to spare them the same fate.]]

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Implied with Donna's cameraman Jim Hoyt, who, in the only time he is shown on-camera, is pretty snappy and rude with her, but also reassures her about her skills as a reporter during the few times he speaks.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The police chief has to remind the mayor to buckle his seat belt while riding in the police car. [[spoiler: The mayor later dies of injuries received after a car wreck.]]

* NoFEMAResponse: A rash of flesh-eating isopods is eating the inhabitants of an entire town, an incurable, horrifying epidemic that had the chief doctor of the local hospital increasingly desperate and pretty much begging the CDC for help. The government's response? Not provide him with a direct answer when he contacts them, quarantine the town for three days with the implication that they are waiting for everybody infected by the isopods to be totally killed off) and conceal all information of the attack (to the point that Donna, who edited the "found footage", explicitly says that a bunch of hackers helped her obtain it and that she totally expects to be KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade once she releases it). To make things even worse, the implication is that the CDC would have been very glad to help with this situation, but ''Homeland Security'' decided to keep everything concealed.

** BloodFromTheMouth

* FreezeFrameBonus: When the characters are doing a web search for information on the creatures, you can see a piece of artwork by [[{{Tropers/Scythemantis}} John Wojcik]], of ''Website/{{Bogleech}}'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Mortasheen}}'' fame, whose nature articles focusing on especially disturbing wildlife are largely responsible for the popularity the [[spoiler:Cymothoa exigua]] has gained on the internet.

* ApocalypticLog: This is what some of the footage is, particularly the videos left by Dr. Abrams, the head doctor who must deal with the outbreak at the local hospital, and Jennifer, a young girl who records the progress of her infection via a Skype/[=YouTube=]-like web app. Stephanie also says that the government may kill her once she releases the video, so this may be ''her'' Apocalyptic Log as well.

* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: Stephanie [[DeadManWriting explicitly says that she expects this to happen to her]] once she releases her report (the film we are seeing). The movie never tells us if this really ended up happening to her.

* NoFEMAResponse: A rash of flesh-eating isopods is eating the inhabitants of an entire town, an incurable, horrifying epidemic that had the chief doctor of the local hospital increasingly desperate and pretty much begging the CDC for help. The government's response? Not provide him with a direct answer when he contacts them, quarantine the town for three days with the implication that they are waiting for everybody infected by the isopods to be totally killed off) and conceal all information of the attack (to the point that Stephanie, who edited the "found footage", explicitly says that a bunch of hackers helped her obtain it and that she totally expects to be KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade once she releases it). To make things even worse, the implication is that the CDC would have been very glad to help with this situation, but ''Homeland Security'' decided to keep everything concealed.

* RightHandVersusLeftHand[=/=]CIAEvilFBIGood: The CDC is presented as eager to help but powerless because of lack of information, while Homeland Security is presented as a bunch of [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Obstructive Bureaucrats]] which concealed information of previous isopod attacks in order to "prevent panic" and is implied are the ones who ordered the town to be quarantined and left to die, as well as concealed all information of the isopod attack that makes the whole film (to the point that it may have also killed Stephanie off-screen, afterwards, once she released it for us to see).

* LeftHandVersusRightHand[=/=]CIAEvilFBIGood: The CDC is presented as eager to help but powerless because of lack of information, while Homeland Security is presented as a bunch of [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Obstructive Bureaucrats]] which concealed information of previous isopod attacks in order to "prevent panic" and is implied are the ones who ordered the town to be quarantined and left to die, as well as concealed all information of the isopod attack that makes the whole film (to the point that it may have also killed Stephanie off-screen, afterwards, once she released it for us to see).

* ThereIsNoFEMAResponse: A rash of flesh-eating isopods is eating the inhabitants of an entire town, an incurable, horrifying epidemic that had the chief doctor of the local hospital increasingly desperate and pretty much begging the CDC for help. The government's response? Not provide him with a direct answer when he contacts them, quarantine the town for three days with the implication that they are waiting for everybody infected by the isopods to be totally killed off) and conceal all information of the attack (to the point that Stephanie, who edited the "found footage", explicitly says that a bunch of hackers helped her obtain it and that she totally expects to be KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade once she releases it). To make things even worse, the implication is that the CDC would have been very glad to help with this situation, but ''Homeland Security'' decided to keep everything concealed.

* ApocalypticLog: This is what some of the footage is, particularly the videos left by Dr. Abrams, the head doctor who must deal with the outbreak at the local hospital, and Jennifer, a young girl who records the progress of her infection via a Skype/[=YouTube=]-like web app.

''[[{{Film/TheBay}} The Bay]]'' is a 2012 found footage horror film from the producer of ''Film/ParanormalActivity'' and ''Film/{{Insidious}}''. It was directed by Creator/BarryLevinson and written by Creator/MichaelWallach.

* PlayingAgainstType: Creator/BarryLevinson is better known as the director of films like ''Film/RainMan'' and ''Film/{{Diner}}''.