Six tourists travelling around Europe
take an extreme tour to the abandoned city of Prypiat, Ukraine. When
their bus breaks down and they have to spend the night, they quickly
discover they are not alone.
I didn't have such a bad time with The
Chernobyl Diaries. Usually it does not bode well when I start hearing
about a film three weeks before it is released, so maybe it was my
lowered expectations that facilitated that. Don't get me wrong, there
is a lot of standard stuff here and the third act doesn't really pay off,
but there were a couple of things that stood out to me.
The first thing is as, I alluded to in
my post title, is the setting. The city of Prypiat is an intriguing
place to set of horror film. The abandoned buildings and eerie
ferris wheel really added to the atmosphere. I actually had a
flashback to playing Call of Duty, as there was a mission
that took place there, as well. When I researched the filming,
I was absolutely floored to learn they didn't actually shoot there.
Could have fooled me?
Did you guys learn nothing from Hostel???
Knowing this was Oren Peli, I was fully
expecting this to be a found footage movie. Fortunately, except for
the opening credits, which have our protagonists filming themselves
travelling around Europe, this was not the case. While it is true
the movie is still shot in that cinéma vérité style – with lots
of prolonged handheld shots and shaky-cam action – I didn't have to
spend half the movie thinking 'why are they still filming?'
The Chernobyl Diaries is largely
paint-by-numbers, but some amazing production values, an idea that,
save for The Hills Have Eyes, is fairly original and some decent
performances make it a serviceable genre flick.
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