I was stunned to see that this film was made by Barry
Levinson, the man behind such movies as DINER, RAIN MAN, GOOD MORNING VIETNAM
and THE NATURAL. This just didn't seem like the sort of film he would make.
Granted it rises above most films like this but still it just felt odd.
The movie is a combination of found footage and ecological
horror film. The town of Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, has something happening to
the water supply. Apparently a combination of fertilizer run off combined with
radiation and then being dumped into the bay only to have that water become the
source of drinking water for the town results in the mishap. What follows is
found footage after the government shuts down the town now a location of little
more than dead bodies and pollution.
When the movie works it is actually due to the found footage
design chosen by Levinson to reveal the story. It's not about select people
though there are a few characters that we become enamored of before learning
what happens to them. The footage is combinations of home movies, news footage
and more that explain what people were going through and how things changed in
the town. When added together it makes for a horrifying possible series of
events that becomes a tad scary towards the conclusion when the last people to
arrive on the docks show up.
The weak parts of the film are the belief that this would
happen to this extent and that the government could actually cover up the
disappearance of an entire town, especially since this is a summer resort where
people from across the country would likely show up. If you can suspend your
belief on these two items then you might enjoy this nature gets revenge type
film. If you think that this is too extreme and left your ecology flag back in
the sixties then you might not enjoy it near as much.
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