Open iTunes to preview, buy, and download this movie.
Plot Summary
"Chernobyl Diaries" is an original story from Oren Peli, who first terrified audiences with his groundbreaking thriller, "Paranormal Activity." The film follows a group of six young vacationers who, looking to go off the beaten path, hire an "extreme tour" guide. Ignoring warnings, he takes them into the city of Pripyat, the former home to the workers of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, but a deserted town since the disaster more than 25 years ago. After a brief exploration of the abandoned city, however, the group soon finds themselves stranded, only to discover that they are not alone…
Credits
Director
Screenwriter
Producer
Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
19%- Reviews Counted: 85
- Fresh: 16
- Rotten: 69
- Average Rating: 4.0/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Rotten: Standard-issue genre accessories (dank stairways, flashlights, overcast skies, frosty windows) abound; shocks are mild and few.
Rotten: Avoid a boredom meltdown and give this formulaic scarefest a wide berth.
Rotten: Scattered stretches of suspense and a few undeniably potent shocks are not enough to dissipate the sense of deja vu that prevails throughout Chernobyl Diaries.
Rotten: The lack of suspense and surprise in this dispiritingly rote film becomes its own form of contamination.
Customer Reviews
AN UNFORTUNATELY MESSY FRIGHT FLICK
I was personally hoping "Chernobyl Diaries" was gonna be a great horror film. With a highly intriguing premise based on the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, the movie had huge potential to be a genuinely haunting cinematic experience. Sadly, that was far from the case. I can dismiss the fact that the characters are a bunch of generic shopworn stereotypes and that the story is just your basic "victims picked off one-by-one" plot, but the terrible execution and uneven pacing are hardly as forgivable. For about the first twenty to thirty minutes, the film attempts to introduce us to its unbearably annoying protagonists with poor results. Their reasoning behind going to Chernobyl in the first place is beyond stupid, and it's hard to feel even the slightest bit sad when one of the characters is inexplicably killed. Another thing that can be incredibly irritating about this movie is its excessive use of cheap jump scares. There's even one scene where the group of vacationers is in an apartment complex and a bear just appears out of nowhere for absolutely no reason. I'll admit, though, I actually did laugh at that part. But if this film does anything right in its relatively short run time, it'd probably be the atmospheric tension that resonates in between scenes. The barren landscape of Chernobyl can especially be eerie to look at when there's no distracting music in the background. But that's all I can really say that's worth commending about the movie. The rest of the flick is filled with bad camerawork, obnoxious dialogue, overabundant plot holes, and middling fright tactics. In the end, I just didn't like it as much as I wanted to. Sure, if the script had been better written and the characters were more interesting, then maybe "Chernobyl Diaries" could've worked, but as it stands, it's a forgettable time-waster with very little to offer beyond its solid premise. In my opinion, it's not worth buying or renting. Just wait till it comes out on TV for free and see it then.
I Can Understand Why People Hate It
There are reasons why a lot of people hated this movie. The first reason is that the trailer makes it look like something it's not. The things that were after the characters were not what I expected they'd be. The second reason is that this is movie is pretty much like every other horror movie where dumb people get killed off one by one. And the last reason is the horrible ending. The ending isn't as bad as the ending in "The Devil Inside", but it's still pretty bad. But I kinda expected it because that's how most horror movies end nowadays. But, I did have fun watching this movie and it was pretty intense. It takes a lot to scare me, but what really gets me is when you don't know what's after you, just like the people did in this movie. You'll know what the things are, but you'll never really get a good look at them. The first 20-30 minutes are sorta boring, but once things start to go bad, it doesn't slow down. And this movie is one of those where you know something is going to make you jump, but you don't know when. But one thing that I really didn't like is that the trailer showed way too much. I knew when a lot of things were going to happen, and those scenes would've been a lot better if I hadn't seen them in the preview. So if you liked movies like "The Hills Have Eyes" or "Wrong Turn", you might like this movie, but be warned: it's not for everyone.
An atmospheric, yet dissapointing horror film.
"Chernoblyl Diaries" is one of those horror films that I really wanted to be good. The idea of being hunted in a ghost town infected with unseen terrors created by the Chernobyl disaster is both a haunting and intriguing premise. Unfortunately, this movie fails to use that idea to its full potential.
When vacationer Paul (Jonathan Sadowski) hires "tour guide" Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko), he invites his five friends to tag along with him to Pripyat; a Russian city abandoned after the real-life Chernobyl disaster. Once they arrive, they start to realize they're not alone... yada yada... unknown horror... yada yada... hunted down one-by-one... you get the picture.
Probably the dumbest thing about this film is that these tourists even said "okay" to visiting an empty city with nuclear radiation still airborne. I get that they did so because we need a premise for a horror story though, so I turned my brain off and tried to be entertained. That didn't work out so well, given that I couldn't stand the soon-to-be-victimized travellers; who were written in such a dumb, shallow way that I couldn't care less what happened to them.
As bad and poorly executed this film is, there are two things that I did find positive to say. Like I said before, the premise is very solid, even though it is dumb to think Chernobyl is a cool place to visit. The other thing that I liked was how this film was just DRIPPING with atmosphere. Whenever the characters shut their mouths, the experience was actually kinda spooky. It's sad though, because that just reminded me of the potential this story had to become more.
At the end of the day, it's hard to even reccomend this as a rental. My advice: wait for it to show up on t.v. as a midnight movie. If you're drowsy enough, it just might be a fun late night experience.
"Have you ever heard of extereme tourism?" - Jonathan Sadowski as Paul
Viewers Also Bought
- The Bay
- Barry Levinson
- View In iTunes
- Dark Skies
- Scott Stewart
- View In iTunes
- V/H/S
- Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glen McQuaid, Joe Swanberg & RADIO SILENCE
- View In iTunes
- Silent House
- Chris Kentis & Laura Lau
- View In iTunes
- The Possession
- Ole Bornedal
- View In iTunes