Horror Movie Challenge #39: "The Bay"

This is one of those movies that everyone has been raving about for awhile, so of course I was worried that it would suck and I would hate it and have to write a negative review of it and have everyone tell me that I'm not really a horror fan again (because horror fans know that's the worst insult they can lob at a horror fan).  So I watched it with trepidation yesterday, because I'd just got done watching a great horror movie and I didn't want to follow it up with a crappy one, and lo, to my great delight, this is indeed a great movie that I loved.

The story here is that the movie is compiled of found footage from a bunch of different sources chronicling a 4th of July festival in a small town a few years ago where all hell broke loose and the government confiscated all the footage after it happened in order to try and bury the story.  The water from the bay in this small town has become contaminated with something, only no one realizes how bad that "something" is until it's too late.  The outbreak starts and at first, no one is too terribly concerned, until as the day goes on people start to realize the severity of what's happening and mass panic ensues as the body count rises.

The special effects are real enough to gross me out and make me never want to swim in a lake or drink water again, and as with all "found footage" movies like this, it gets to me and creeps me out more because it looks real and I could see it happening in any of the small lakeside towns I've visited over the years.  That plus the emotional core, where characters that seem like everyday people who could be my friends or neighbors start dying in horrible ways, gets under my skin.  Plus I've seen a lot of horror movies, so I like to pride myself on my ability to usually be able to tell when a "jump scare" is coming, but there's a jump scare near the end of this movie that I totally didn't see coming, and I was cleaning under my nails with a knife at the time and nearly cut my finger off when I jumped out of the chair.  I recommend staying away from sharp objects when you watch this movie, you know, for the safety of your fingers.  But you should definitely watch this movie, because it really is as good as everyone says it is.