Sean of The Daily Rotation wrote, "Barry Levinson is an interesting director. Not many would expect that the Oscar winning director of Rain Man and Bugsy would be next in line to make a found footage horror film, but here it is, in the form of The Bay. While it’s definitely a found footage film, it’s a bit different in style than stuff like [REC] and The Blair Witch Project. The main feature is the wide range of different viewpoints. While there are characters that carry a single camera around, Levinson uses the prevalence of video cameras in modern society to depict an outbreak from all walks of life, from private vacations, to video chat sessions, to security cameras, and even cameras mounted in police cars."
