It’s a neat little concept, and one that looked pretty decently executed in the film’s trailer, but can Oren ( Paranormal Activity) Peli’s latest horror wow as much as his famously low-budget debut? After a spot of alien horror in The Darkest Hour, another film with a nonsensical title has arrived to take advantage of a not often seen location, actually going one step further by putting the cannon fodder into off-limits disaster site, Pripyat, the city evacuated after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The latter is however not quite as complementary as it could be perhaps here a gory approach could have made up for what is lacking elsewhere.‘Off the map’ seems to be the new thing for horror movies to exploit, and tourists in Russia have gotten the worst of it in 2012. Also, the presence of gore as the victims are found literally torn apart could have very easily been over-the-top, but the decision was made for understatement, which, these days, is a refreshing change. We don’t, not quite, and this was reasonably effective.
With more of a glimpse of the mutant(s) with each incident, this is an instil of progressive tension, implying that we will get a good look at these monsters. What is done reasonably well is the attacks. An easy partial solution could have addressed this issue by simply having the characters speak a little less, a natural psychological reaction to what is an alien atmosphere, and yet this did not occur to the filmmakers, robbing Chernobyl Diaries of an essential element. A ghost town of over two decades really ought to exude a unique atmosphere, yet these characters could be anywhere clearly some more attention ought to have been paid to set-piece. Thankfully this is shifted to regular hand-held thereafter, but all the rest of the usual cliches are there, save a rather unexpected appearance from a brown bear. Presumably said bear is a mutant, like the twisted monsters coming for the group.Īside from the predictability of it all, a big criticism is that it’s difficult to feel the isolation. Set in Prypyat, the real-life ghost town near the titular nuclear power plant - I’m amazed it took this long to make a film around the circumstances - the opener is not promising, subjecting to us the usual hand-held POV nonsense associated with the ‘backpacker in peril’ subgenre, as we’re introduced to our initial three characters. Pitched as from the creator of Paranormal Activity - Oren Peli, who dreamed up the story and shared screenplay efforts - this title is highly unlikely to be as impactive, bringing nothing new to the genre. DIRECTORBradley Parker WRITER Oren Peli Carey Van Dyke Shane Van Dyke STARS Jesse McCartney Jonathan Sadowski Olivia Taylor Dudley CINEMA Now
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