jaguiar313 Review of Chernobyl Diaries

Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

Routine horror despite the interesting setting.

[5/10 · 25 May 2012]

Chernobyl Diaries tells the story of a group of 6 twenty-somethings who sign up for a shady tour of Pripyat, a city outside Russia's infamous Chernobyl reactor, where all the workers lived with their families. The city is still abandoned... or is it? Despite the novel set- up, Diaries becomes very routine once our young adventure seekers become trapped in the city with whatever is lurking there and despite some reasonable competence behind the camera, the film never generates much suspense or tension as we know what's coming and even the jump scares were familiar enough to not have much effect. The photography is spooky and it helps give it a bit of atmosphere but, the two dimensional characters never give us a reason to care and the film follows a time worn blueprint for this kind of film and the odd and unsatisfying end doesn't help either. Chernobyl Diaries isn't the worst horror I have seen, but, it's lazy in that it takes it's unique setting and places within it a very unoriginal story and does nothing interesting with playing it out. It's as if the filmmakers felt that the creativity with the initial idea of setting a movie in that desolate area was enough to carry the whole film. It's not. They could have at least given us some shocking gore. They don't even do that as the kills are off screen and the carnage is barely shown. A rental at best if you are still curious.