Film review: The Bay (15)

Barry Levinson, foiled on his John Gotti biopic, returns to his native Maryland to film this low-budget shocker. Couched as a found-footage exposé – the events have been hushed up by officialdom – it's a serviceable if hardly original eco-horror.

All seems calm in Claridge, a coastal backwater in Chesapeake Bay, until a fast-acting plague breaks out, the local hospital is overrun and people start dying of horrible flesh wounds.

Two marine biologists had already perished after discovering voracious parasites in fish, but that never made the headlines, either. The cause: tons of chicken shit dumped on the seabed, creating a marine "dead zone".

Standard stuff, though Kether Donohue as the TV reporter reviewing the havoc is good value.