Chernobyl Diaries

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Theodore R Mar 17, 2019 An interesting premise but does not provide any scares. It does show me that I do not want to tour Chernobyl but watching it I thought I would learn something I did not know about Chernobyl but I learned more from James May and Jeremy Clarkson driving through it then anything from this movie. See more

Finn W Feb 21, 2019 [SPOILERS AHEAD - GO TO LAST PARAGRAPH TO SEE FINAL THOUGHTS AND SPOILER-FREE] Chernobyl Diaries is a story about a group of 7 people heading to Pripyat to explore the abandoned city as part of a tour. As per any film of this genre, everything starts out well and all of our characters have a good time. Needless to say problems occur (like the cliche "my car won't start/nobody knows I'm out here") and our friends are forced to spend the night in Pripyat. One by one they start to get picked off as they go throughout Pripyat and eventually end up at the now-famous reactor number 4 in Chernobyl. My thoughts on the film were very positive at first. I generally liked all of the characters. Most people would argue that they're too flat and simple; but for a movie about one and a half hours long, I think they pulled it off well. I must also note that I was a fan of the Cloverfield movie, and in general a fan of the "shaky cam". I think it adds more immersion to the film, especially in survival-horror ones like this. It almost makes you feel like you were there. The environments in the film look fantastic and as far as I can tell, they do a pretty good job to make the abandoned buildings look correct. When our characters are trapped in the van the film still goes strong, with Uri and Chris going out to see what's going on. The distant gunshots and lights from it are well executed and add to the feeling of "what's going on out there?". Chris returns with a horribly mangled leg claiming Uri was "got" by those things out there. The next day most of the group goes out to search for Uri and they find him deceased. Skipping forward a bit, part of the group decides they want to go ahead and go back to the checkpoint they were originally supposed (they were denied from entering Pripyat earlier in the film). They said it was about a 20km walk (about 14 miles) and would be back before dark. While the group was traveling they came upon a car lot in Pripyat and managed to find the cables to repair the vehicle. Except, when they start walking back it's already night. I don't understand this. Either they took forever to walk a couple blocks to the car lot or time accelerates 7 times faster than everywhere else in the world. Small gripe, I know. Anyways, they return to find the van destroyed and a video kind of depicting what happened to it. The group then sets out to find Chris and Natalie and this is where the film completely falls off for me. The film completely abandons the idea of mutated animals inhabiting the city. Instead, the last 30-ish minutes of the film is the crew getting picked off one-by-one by some...human zombie things? They act exactly like zombies but instead of eating you they just kind of tug on your jacket and pull you into dark places. Skipping forward, most of the group is picked off and it's just Paul and Amanda left. They emerge from reactor number 4 having obvious signs on radiation sickness/poisoning, only to be greeted by a Russian checkpoint. The Russian guards shout at them to not come any closer, but Paul decides to anyway. It's important to note here that Paul understands Russian. He spoke it a number of times throughout the film, but for some reason he forgets everything about it and almost acts like he doesn't understand them. The Russian guards then shoot Paul, killing him, and Amanda just falls to her knees and passes out I guess. Amanda then wakes up in an ambulance and later a hospital, with nurses saying how they're going to take care of her. It was then revealed that the human zombie things I was talking about earlier were escaped radiation patients (I still don't understand to be honest). After explain that, what do the doctors do? They say how they can't let Amanda leave and throw her in a dark room. Amanda stumbles around for a little bit only to be swarmed by the human zombie things with a doctor closing the window on the door. Aaaannnddd, that's it. That's the ending. I didn't really get it. I was just left kind of confused and actually started laughing when the last scene happened. Overall, Chernobyl Diaries has about as strong of a first half anyone could want from a movie like this. Sadly the second half falls so hard, it's as bad as the first half is good. Even with that said though, I would recommend giving it a watch if you don't mind having a very confusing ending. The film obviously had some effort put into it, and with just a budget of a million dollars the environments are surprisingly nice. See more

Jan 8, 2019 A truly toxic film, this is well realised, effective horror. The film makers realise there'd more to be gained from showing people terrified than blood and gore. The hand-held camera works giving s sense of being in the middle of things and the film is well structured. See more

George S Dec 26, 2018 Its a cool setting, but ultimately it sucks... they sure dont make movies like they used to :(

Hermione P Nov 17, 2018 It's an interesting premise that had potential, because it's got some chilling atmosphere, and actually a few scary moments. But it's been pissed all over the wall with a horrible screenplay, bad acting, worn-out cliches and paper thin characters that no one really gives a shit about. The camera work is extremely raw, which gives it an authentic and campy look, especially since it was shot on location, but overall, this is a real lazy, half-assed rip off of The Hills Have Eyes (1977), that gets boring quickly enough. Not recommended... See more

George L Oct 17, 2018 Scripted on the back of a cigarette packet and phoned in by Z List Actors, this is obvious and boring at every turn. THEY HAVE A SCENE WHERE THEY DISCOVER ONE OF THOSE 3 EYED FISH FROM THE SIMPSONS AND EVERYONE KEEPS A STRAIGHT FACE. Really poor, oh and Supergrass isn't what cool young teens listen to , well it was when I was a teen but I'm 40. See more

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