Barry Levinson - yes, that Levinson of Diner, Rain Man and Bugsy fame - while no stranger to the genre pic, has just previewed a soon to be released mash-up of genre pics in The Bay.  But how does one classify this new visual concoction of tightly scripted scenarios with no-name actors dutifully shouting exposition via torch light?

Is this a nasty fish out of water pretty college girls in bikinis slasher fest?  A shadowy X-Files/ Super 8 government conspiracy plot? A human takes viral zombie form dystopian horror?  CSI /Silence of the Lambs procedural scientific investigative thriller?  Or simply just another found footage - David Stratton infuriating, vomit inducing - urban myth parable?

It definitely signals all of these elements if we are to believe the trailer.  But it also looks very refined and better assembled than most shaky-camera-cam epics.  Refined in a way that the iconography of these blended genres are in the hands of an accomplished team who have designed rather than stumbled upon the visual technique which signifies the film’s recent cinematic roots.

Could this be the maturing of the found footage genre?  Or was Cloverfield the peak of what has become a tired - see cheap - production model?  One wonders what motivated a director of Levinson’s pedigree to step on board this late in the game.

Time will tell.

via i watch stuff