The Movie Diorama
It just goes to show that a lower budget does not necessarily result in an excellent film, particularly of this genre. The scares were non-existent, consistent shaky cam and one-dimensional characters. I expected nothing more to be honest. A group of tourists have been travelling around Europe, during their stop at Kiev they come across an extreme-tour to Pripyat. Yet, the desolate ghost town may not actually be so abandoned after all. Everyone and their pet dog knows about the Chernobyl disaster, which is why it makes such an interesting location for a horror. Early one morning an entire town had to evacuate immediately before succumbing to the leaking nuclear radiation. The problem with this film is, in my opinion, it's insensitive. This was a horrible accident to which innocent lives were lost, to then exploit that with such mediocrity felt wrong. Personal views aside, this film was boring, predictable and tame. The setting of Pripyat and Chernobyl did create a chilling atmosphere, and the first fifteen minutes genuinely had good character development. Then when our characters arrive, they just become expendable. The "scares" are simply loud noises, literally. There's a scene where an irradiated bear suddenly charges through a hallway...midway up an apartment complex. Oren Peli lost me at that point. Then Brad Parker's directing style, whilst bold with various long takes, lacks confidence and slowly succumbs to shaky cam. A horrendous scene that perfectly illustrates this is when the van is mysteriously attacked. Filmed through the perspective of a phone, the camera is tossed around like a rag doll. I physically could not see anything! How is that scary!? Heck if I wanted to be scared of the unknown, I would've taken a stroll at midnight without a torch instead of watching this. The ending was rushed, I'm talking "concluded" within thirty seconds. It also ends on a jump scare...yep, pretty much sums this up. Chernobyl Diaries? Hardly a diary, more like a note. A post-it note. Chernobyl Post-It Notes.
carlodegraaff
The premise of the movie is no different the movies The Hills have Eyes and The Hills have Eyes 2. People that are living in an area contaminated by radiation. Find people in there area. Abduct them at night. Kill some for food. And maybe even use the women for reproduction. Non affected Russians/Ukraine's know of the people and cover up their being at Chernobyl and any survivors are then thrown to them to get rid of evidence.A Very close plot to the Hills Have Eyes but at Chernobyl. I feel could have been better by showing the animals also have mutated. None of the animals seemed to have been affected by the radiation but the humans/fish have.
ashleybrownmedia
I think the thing that first drew me to horror films is how, very often, things seem so happy and bright at the start...that you almost wonder how anything could go wrong for the characters at all.This is how The Chernobyl Diaries starts...although thanks to a great use of sound a sense of foreboding and dread slowly seeps in as the creepy events start to unfold.Let me be clear - this isn't a perfect film, and if it wasn't for the use of sound, I'd have probably given it a five star 'average' rating.The plot centres around a few characters who are travelling Europe, they head to Ukraine where a family member lives. He convinces them to go on an 'extreme tourism' excursion to the site of the Chernobyl tragedy.Needless to say, things go a little wrong and they soon find themselves in the supposedly deserted city overnight.The camera-work is varied - ranging from 'handicam' shots to 'found footage' from a digital camera. It can mean things are a tad disjointed in places - and, as with many low-budget films, the story has a few plot holes or stupid moments. However, I was able to overlook these as it's far from a boring film. There's always something going on and it keeps you guessing until near the end as to what the horror is.I appreciate different endings to different films - whether they be good or negative. However, I felt that the ending was a low point in the film - I won't spoil it for you of course, but if you're like me you'll spot it coming a mile off - and I did hold out a little hope that I might be wrong.
teemu-uusitalo
So, I just wanted some exciting horror for the night. My expectations were definitely not high, since horror movies often are just stupid. They are good though if they succeed in entertaining me at some level.This movie here, as you might see from the low score I gave it, wasn't very entertaining. Chernobyl Diaries started off with some basic young adult's vacation stuff, having fun and all, yeah. In comes Uri who takes a group of friends and other travelers to Pripjat to take a look at the ghost town. Unsurprisingly their car won't start when they are about to leave the place after the tour. From there on, everything goes wrong and the group starts to gain casualties as the hostile residents of the so called ghost town attack them...They got angry dogs and random radioactively contaminated angry people who seem to be unable to communicate in any human level but are just about enough smart to get the group members one at a time. For some reason they just kill them, I guess they want to eat them or something. I don't understand why they even would keep lurking in the shadows since they have an overwhelming superiority of people. It's just so stupid. Why would there even be people left in Pripjat? On rare occasion movies just get worse all the time. Chernobyl Diaries is a great example of that kind of movie. It feels like every scene just sinks the movie deeper into stupidity, irrationality and clichés. It's not even entertaining: no humor can be found and I couldn't even laugh at any funny looking monsters since they barely even showed them. These mutant people were just a gray mass of meat with faces like the Slipknot singer Corey Taylor's current mask. As a summary, let's say that in this movie you can find a bunch of clichés, boring characters (close to the end I just hoped they all would die soon), boring monsters, cheap special effects and one amusing jump scare (the bear). The setting was a good chance gone to waste. This movie could easily have been much better if someone had told the writers about a little thing called imagination. In this movie there is pretty much nothing original or interesting whatsoever.2/10
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