History Film / TheBay

* DaylightHorror: Bad things kick off on a bright and sunny July 4th.

* AttackOfTheKillerWhatever: [[spoiler:Isopods, being fed chicken excrement and chemicals.]]

* 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 ''WebOriginal/{{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.

* EyeTake: During their interview with an EPA representative, CDC doctors allow him to explain all the problems with the water in the Chesapeake Bay - which just happens to include "a small leak from a nuclear reactor in 2002", result in two of the doctors looking up with wide-eyed expressions of disbelief.

* MistakenForDisease: Dr Abrams initially believes that the plague may be some kind of infection, but after seeing roughly half the town turn up in the hospital waiting room and witnessing the symptoms advancing too quickly to be treated even with amputation, he begins accepting wilder possibilities. Eventually, the CDC discover the truth: [[spoiler: it's actually a parasitic infestation; Cymothoa exigua have been mutated by exposure to chemical waste from a factory farm, and are now capable of preying on humans. The "necrosis" is actually the parasites literally eating their victims alive from the inside.]].

Not to be confused with the Canadian department store chain that was once the Hudson's Bay Company.

* GhostTown: By the time 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.

* KilledOffscreen: Almost everyone dies from the infection or other causes offscreen, except for a few characters.
* LateToTheTragedy: Alex and Stephanie arrive in Claridge after dark, by which time the worst of the chaos has already concluded and the place has been reduced to a GhostTown. For good measure, it's not long before they notice the first of the bodies.

* BadBlackBarf: [[spoiler:Once the parasites have started munching on internal organs.]]

* DeathOfAChild: 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

* TheElitesJumpShip: The CDC completely abandon Claridge after the infection.

* TheImmune: Some of the townsfolk turn out to be immune to the infection for unknown reasons, even though they were either drinking or swimming in the same contaminated water as the victims. Donna turns out to be one of them, being filmed taking a drink from a public drinking fountain and suffering no ill effects.

* TheElitesHaveJumpedShip: The CDC completely abandon Claridge after the infection.

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

* DeathOfAChild: 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.

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

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Officer Jimson shoots himself in order to avoid the pain of being eaten to death by the isopods. Alex attempts to have Stephanie commit a MercyKill with a fire poker but she isn't unable to before one eats its way out of his neck.]]

* EurekaMoment: [[spoiler:When the main CDC agent in charge of the investigation asks how the isopods could have managed to get through the water filtration despite their size, one of his coworkers posits that their larva would be small enough to slip through. There's an audible silence as he registers that this is likely what occurred before nervously pivoting away from the subject.]]

* 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 Donna off-screen, afterwards, once she released it for us to see).

* AdultFear: There is a mysterious and quickly spreading epidemic going around town. The hospital and other medical facilities are overrun and the medical personnel have never seen anything like this. Your neighbors are dying in horrific pain and are being mutilated by unseen forces. That alone is terrifying, but the horror gets worse as parents are watching their children get sick and being unable to do anything about it. [[spoiler: And worse -- it comes from the town's water supply. The water you're drinking and immersing yourself in is killing you.]]

* ThePlague

* SuicideByCop: Some victims in a house beg Officer Jimson to shoot them, [[spoiler:which he does]].

** [[spoiler: The tongue-eating isopod is also an obligately marine organism, with saltwater-adapted gills and fluid-balance mechanisms. As such, it wouldn't be able to survive in a freshwater environment, let alone in one where the surrounding liquid it's trying to breathe is ''saliva''.]]

** [[spoiler: The tongue-eating isopod is also an obligately marine organism, with saltwater-adapted gills and fluid-balance mechanisms. As such, it wouldn't be able to survive in a freshwater environment, let alone in one where the surrounding liquid is ''saliva''.]]