It appears now that films don't have to be based on true events to be exciting. Simply placing them in a "true" location is good enough (if not extremely offensive, as what seems to be the buzz on the internet at the moment about Chernobyl Diaries...)
The film centres around six tourists; the couple, Chris (Jesse McCartney) who was going to propose to his girlfriend, Natalie (Olivia Taylor Dudley), mutual friend Amanda (Devin Kelley), Chris' brother Paul (Jonathan Sadowski) and backpacking couple, Michael (Nathan Phillips) and Zoe (Ingrid Bolso Berdal). They are led by tour guide, Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko) around the abandoned city of Pripyat, the town overlooked by the doomed Chernobyl nuclear disaster site. As they find out that their van has been tampered with, leaving them stranded, they soon realise that they are not alone...
To be honest, it's pretty standard horror fare right from the word go. As soon as the first montage of the couple's travelling trip comes up on screen, faint memories of the Hostel films will pass through your mind and the typical bland stereotypes of the characters also fits pretty well into the horror film cliches. And once the group's van gets tampered with, echoes on Texas Chainsaw Massacre will probably then whistle through your mind.
To say Chernobyl Diaries is uninspired would be an understatement. There is nothing new in this film whatsoever that makes it a remotely interesting horror film. What's more? It's extremely repetitive. To try and count the amount of times that the group follow a trail of blood when one of them goes missing or the amount of times that Paul shouts out his brother's name in vain when they are looking for him is almost impossible. Also, some of the decisions the characters make will certainly make your eyes roll. I know horror films are known for having stupid characters, but this film makes not attempt at trying to show us any reason for the character's rash decisions - no, they just decide to split up and go into a dark building because... that's what they decide to do.
Another thing that the film fails to do is build any real tension, which is a big turn-off for a horror film. The group have a geiger counter to warn them of any extremely high nuclear levels, yet when the counter goes off, they just ignore it and carry on the exact way they were going anyway. As the audience, we are not told what level the geiger counter has to get to before the group will be in danger, so we just hear the geiger counter go off and then see the characters ignore it. It's just a pointless part to the film.
Another way that the film lacked tension is that despite the group being picked off one-by-one, there never seemed to be any urgency about getting the hell out of there!! Or, what's more, they never attempt to try and hide from whatever is chasing them - they just stand out in the open, continually shout their friends names to try and find them and flash their torches every way they want to. The characters don't really seem scared by what's chasing them, so why should we?!
And finally, what's with trying to turn animals into villains?! Granted, the big 'bear scene' is a pretty good scare/surprise. I won't say anymore about that though... But, angry and aggressive wild dogs? Mutated, flesh-eating fish?! It was just a weak attempt at trying to add an extra dimension of tension in the film that didn't really work.
However, one way that the film does succeed is it's filming style. Imitating styles of recent films such as Silent House and touching on the style of the hand-held, first person style filming (ala. Paranormal Activity and The Last Exorcism), the film does have a heightened sense of us, as the audience, being there with them. While Silent House did it better, because the lack of editing cuts was a really immersive experience, Chernobyl Diaries does suffer sometimes with some too slick editing. A best example I could use to try and describe this would be when Amanda finds the abandoned school bus - instead of having a lingering camera shot outside before having it follow her in (so we don't see what's inside the bus straight away), the film instead decides to cut to a shot inside the bus, so we see what's inside and all tension is lost...
So, if you like your stereotypical horrors with cardboard cut-out characters doing stupid things, then Chernobyl Diaries will not disappoint. If you like your horror with a bit more of an edge to it, then I'd give this one a miss.
** / *****
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