The Bay

The Bay (2012) is Barry Levinson's found-footage horror film, and you can watch it online on iFILM. In the sleepy coastal town of Claridge, Maryland, the Fourth of July turns into a nightmare when a waterborne parasite starts eating its victims alive from the inside.

Everything reaches you through other people's screens. Smartphone clips, webcam feeds, police dashcam recordings and frantic 911 calls stitch together a single day when a holiday by the bay collapses into carnage. Three years later, a young reporter assembles the footage the authorities tried to bury and pieces back together how the town lost hundreds of lives in a matter of hours. Kristen Connolly anchors it as the eyewitness narrator, and her dread carries the film without any cheap shocks.

Levinson, who won an Oscar for Rain Man, takes a surprise detour into eco-horror and shoots it almost like a documentary about a poisoned estuary. It was made on a small budget, yet the claustrophobic mood and stomach-churning biology bite harder than plenty of bigger productions. A strong pick for fans of mockumentary scares and outbreak stories. Stream The Bay (2012) online on iFILM.