Barry Levinson's 'The Bay' Is A Fictional Horror Movie Meant To Save The Real Chesapeake

From TakePart's Jon Bowermaster:

Born, raised, and still a proud resident of Baltimore, Maryland, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Barry Levinson (Diner, Rain Man, Good Morning, Vietnam) has used his native home as a backdrop to many of his filmsbut never quite like this.

His new film, The Bay, documents a Fourth of July on the tranquil shores of the Chesapeake Bay. The seemingly benign holiday quickly takes a terrifying turn when mutating isopods begin to eat swimmers and water drinkers from the inside out.

Where exactly did the fast-growing parasites come from? The combination of agricultural pesticides, random pollutants, and steroids-in-chicken-manure that have been dumped into the bay, which have (in fact) rendered the Chesapeake 40 percent dead.

Eighty five percent of the story is based on facts, says Levinson, in an exclusive interview with TakePart. In most cases we arent making this stuff up.

The Bay opens on November 2.

Read on for Levinsons thoughts on the Chesapeake Bays future, particularly why urgent action must be taken to save a national treasure.

TakePart: You are not known for horror films. Where did the idea come from?

Barry Levinson: I didnt start out to make an eco-horror film. I was asked initially to make a documentary about the Chesapeake Bay and the fact that its 40 percent dead. I did a little research and found that Frontline had done a terrific documentary about the Chesapeake and all of its problems, yet I didnt hear a lot of people really up in arms about the dangers. They made a great documentary and nobody paid attention. I thought, How can I do it better? and thought, I probably cant.

But I started to think about the scary facts and about my skills as a storyteller, and thats how the idea evolved. I would have never sat down to write a so-called eco-horror movie.

TakePart: Its probably fair to say that the Maryland Tourism Board is not going to be promoting the film, given that your mutating parasites essentially kill off a small community on a sunny holiday weekend.

Barry Levinson: What is the option, to not talk about the fact that the Chesapeake is 40 percent dead, to put it under the rug, let it continue to decline? A lot of this stuff has been hidden for a long time and at some point you have to say were going to deal with this, not ignore it. It wont just go away.

There is nothing thats going on the Chesapeake Bay that cant be corrected. Its not an unknown disease, we know all of the contributing factors, so how do we aggressively try and fix it?

Its 40 percent dead now. We dont want it to become 55 or 60 percent dead because then the economics will turn against you. The chicken industry of course says that cleaning it up will cost jobs, but even with that we still have time to find answers.

As a filmmaker, I have the obligation to entertain an audience. But I can also pose questions. The facts are what make this movie more captivating at a certain level.

TakePart: In real life similar isopods have grown to two-and-a-half feet long and tried to chew through a submarine, thinking it was a whale carcass.

Barry Levinson: Thats the thing, 85 percent of the stuff in the film is factual. That isopods have moved from the Pacific to the Atlantic is true, though they havent moved into the Chesapeake...yet. That we are throwing the whole male/female relationship in the marine world out of whack by polluting it, is true. The water filtration system in this country is broken, that is true. There are all kinds of things happening in the bay due to chemicals dumped into it so that we are playing with a toxic soup.

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