Karry
Best movie of this year hands down!
CheerupSilver
Very Cool!!!
Fatma Suarez
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
ashleybrownmedia
I think the thing that first drew me to horror films is how, very often, things seem so happy and bright at the start...that you almost wonder how anything could go wrong for the characters at all.This is how The Chernobyl Diaries starts...although thanks to a great use of sound a sense of foreboding and dread slowly seeps in as the creepy events start to unfold.Let me be clear - this isn't a perfect film, and if it wasn't for the use of sound, I'd have probably given it a five star 'average' rating.The plot centres around a few characters who are travelling Europe, they head to Ukraine where a family member lives. He convinces them to go on an 'extreme tourism' excursion to the site of the Chernobyl tragedy.Needless to say, things go a little wrong and they soon find themselves in the supposedly deserted city overnight.The camera-work is varied - ranging from 'handicam' shots to 'found footage' from a digital camera. It can mean things are a tad disjointed in places - and, as with many low-budget films, the story has a few plot holes or stupid moments. However, I was able to overlook these as it's far from a boring film. There's always something going on and it keeps you guessing until near the end as to what the horror is.I appreciate different endings to different films - whether they be good or negative. However, I felt that the ending was a low point in the film - I won't spoil it for you of course, but if you're like me you'll spot it coming a mile off - and I did hold out a little hope that I might be wrong.
teemu-uusitalo
So, I just wanted some exciting horror for the night. My expectations were definitely not high, since horror movies often are just stupid. They are good though if they succeed in entertaining me at some level.This movie here, as you might see from the low score I gave it, wasn't very entertaining. Chernobyl Diaries started off with some basic young adult's vacation stuff, having fun and all, yeah. In comes Uri who takes a group of friends and other travelers to Pripjat to take a look at the ghost town. Unsurprisingly their car won't start when they are about to leave the place after the tour. From there on, everything goes wrong and the group starts to gain casualties as the hostile residents of the so called ghost town attack them...They got angry dogs and random radioactively contaminated angry people who seem to be unable to communicate in any human level but are just about enough smart to get the group members one at a time. For some reason they just kill them, I guess they want to eat them or something. I don't understand why they even would keep lurking in the shadows since they have an overwhelming superiority of people. It's just so stupid. Why would there even be people left in Pripjat? On rare occasion movies just get worse all the time. Chernobyl Diaries is a great example of that kind of movie. It feels like every scene just sinks the movie deeper into stupidity, irrationality and clichés. It's not even entertaining: no humor can be found and I couldn't even laugh at any funny looking monsters since they barely even showed them. These mutant people were just a gray mass of meat with faces like the Slipknot singer Corey Taylor's current mask. As a summary, let's say that in this movie you can find a bunch of clichés, boring characters (close to the end I just hoped they all would die soon), boring monsters, cheap special effects and one amusing jump scare (the bear). The setting was a good chance gone to waste. This movie could easily have been much better if someone had told the writers about a little thing called imagination. In this movie there is pretty much nothing original or interesting whatsoever.2/10
alwayspeni
My words are only based on a SiFi movie. This could have been one of the Greatest SiFi/ Thriller, if not one of the best movies I've ever seen in this Genre...but, the writers seemed to have decided to go the lazy route with the ending. Way To Go, you Guys! Also, if there were someone with vision, this could of had a sequel. The Characters were all very Great, I wouldn't have given up on them so easily. They were very strong and strong in their direction. What is SAD to see is the creation into this New World END without Merit. These actors had the ability to Create and Discover another Life/Living Outside of the Modern and in the Extreme... It had all the ingredients of an EPIC Movie or Movies...! Great Job to you all! This was just another one hit wonder THAT DIDN'T HAVE TO BE! There is a lot more here if given to the proper creators. Something dormant or just unnoticed, surviving and not necessarily cruel, living in a hostile environment that would tear them apart if not for the ability to adapt. Overcome. Live.
begob
A reluctant group of American tourists are persuaded by their chancer buddy to join an extreme tour, led by a local commando, of a city abandoned 25 years earlier after a nuclear reactor disaster. They discover that radiation is not the only hazard ...Great idea for this, so the fact it follows a formula doesn't drain it of interest. The characters are established fairly well, with the actors obviously enjoying themselves, and the pace is good as we soon get inside the danger zone. But there's a steady decline in the quality of story telling following that. The first jump scare, involving a fish, is cocked up badly, which suggests inexperienced director, and that's repeated later on in a scene on a bus. Others have noted the stupidity of the decisions made by the characters, which takes you out of the story, and the characterisation peters out once the action gets heavy. Various aspects aren't explored properly, like the fish threat or the strangeness of Chernobyl's wildlife (eg. well documented that spiders there weave weird webs). And then you have the real threat, suggested with unspooky touches (photo of the window), that then comes to the fore in a rushed climax and twist. Not convincing, and I think they missed a trick in not emphasising the wildlife as a foretaste of the hell about to be unleashed.The camera is mostly 3rd person POV, breaking into 1st person occasionally, and I'm not sure how this affected the story. There is shaky cam, but not nauseating. The music was fine, not overbearing.Overall, the logline to this movie had lots of promise but they probably needed to rip up the screenplay a few more times.
