Wes Craven always said that he likes to cast unfamiliar faces in his scary movies, to give the audience less of a handle on who will survive (and what will be left of them). Barry Levinson, not generally known for horror, has taken this advice on board, gathering a cast of unknowns for his ecological scarefest **The Bay.
Will Rogers, Frank Deal and Stephen Kunken all have several episodes of Law and Order on their CVs; Kether Donohue has provided voice work for Pokemon and Kurokami; Kristy Connelly had a role in Bicentennial Man, and was in Nash Bridges once; and Christopher Denham, a huge star by comparison to the rest (although he's also paid the bills with Law and Order), worked for Martin Scorsese and Mike Nichols in Shutter Island and Charlie Wilson's War.
The big names are all behind the camera then. Levinson quietly started shooting in South Carolina a few weeks ago, and the production comes to us courtesy of Haunted Films, the set-up belonging to the Paranormal Activity team of Oren Peli, Steven Schneider and Jason Blum (also behind James Wan's Insidious and Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem).
The Bay, once known as Isopod, is told, of course, through uncovered videos shot by the now-dead inhabitants of a small town, after an ecological disaster involving mutant fish parasites. Are we talking zombies here (yawn)? Because on paper, this sounds like it could potentially be a remake of Island of Terror in all but name. That would be another reason to use unknowns: you can't replace Peter Cushing.