Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
Average Rating: 4/10
Reviews Counted: 85
Fresh: 17 | Rotten: 68
Despite an interesting premise and spooky atmospherics, Chernobyl Diaries is mostly short on suspense and originality.
Average Rating: 3.6/10
Critic Reviews: 15
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 12
Despite an interesting premise and spooky atmospherics, Chernobyl Diaries is mostly short on suspense and originality.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.6/5
User Ratings: 139,046
My Rating
Movie Info
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,
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Cast
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Olivia Taylor Dudley
Natalie -
Devin Kelley
Amanda -
Jesse McCartney
Chris -
Nathan Phillips
Michael -
Jonathan Sadowski
Paul -
Milos Timotijevic
Russian Check Point Gua... -
Milutin Milosevic
Ukrainian Thug -
Ivan Djordjevic
Ukrainian Thug -
Ivan Jovic
Ukrainian Thug -
Zinaida Dedakin
Restaurant Owner -
Ivana Milutinovic
Little Girl -
Alex Feldman
Medic Goldshimdt -
Kristoff Konrad
Medic Grotzky -
Pasha D. Lychnikoff
Doctor -
Jay Krash
Humanoid
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Chernobyl Diaries Trailer & Photos
All Critics (85) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (18) | Rotten (69) | DVD (3)
Once the annoying, two-dimensional characters start getting bumped off one by one, it's just a relief that the actors have stopped improvising their own banal dialogue.
Top CriticDirector Bradley Parker shakes his camera around a lot.
The real stars of the movie are the tired devices and plot points. They're famous, but they're as old as Betty White: The Guide Is Dead, The Van Won't Start, Her Shirt Has a Plunging Neckline, Don't Go in There.
Standard-issue genre accessories (dank stairways, flashlights, overcast skies, frosty windows) abound; shocks are mild and few.
You might actively root for their collective demise, if you could rouse yourself to care one way or the other. Go gallivanting in Chernobyl and you get what you pay for, nimrods.
First-time director Bradley Parker (working from a script co-written by Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli) understands that suggesting is scarier than showing, and confusion generates more suspense than explanations do.
After one effective scene involving a radiated Russian bear, the quality of first-time director Bradley Parker's narrative starts melting down like a TEPCO facility.
There's nothing but many empty scares and zero resolution...
While it won't win any prizes for originality, Chernobyl Diaries is still a relatively effective horror experience and certainly not deserving of some of the one-star reviews being afforded its way.
Its strengths make it worth paying attention to, while its weaknesses prevent it from becoming the first-class chiller it had the potential to be.
Chernobyl Diaries deserves no prizes for originality (or good taste) but it makes a decent fist of its simple pitch by executing everything it requires extremely efficiently.
Unsatisfactory both as a low-budget schlocker and as a piece of entertainment.
Possibly the most tedious horror movie since the last "Paranormal Activity." (Blu-ray Combo edition)
There's nothing interesting, creative, innovative, exciting, suspenseful, or scary about it. We just sit there and wait for it to be over.
Chernobyl Diaries is a mismatched effort that was working with some intriguing core elements -- undermined by worn-out recreations of familiar horror set-ups.
Sitting through this shaky-cam disaster of Chernobyl-like proportions is simply not worth your time, money or equilibrium.
Dialogue is banal, the camerawork's predictable, and any subtext's missing in all the action. The flick's irradiated with a general insensitivity to human tragedy. The place, though, is deeply eerie on its own.
"Chernobyl Diaries" is just senseless, idiotic, and pointless. If a horror movie is going to be chock full of people making stupid decisions, it would be nice if they were at least somewhat logical.
There's a great idea hiding in there somewhere - shame they didn't find it.
You've seen this sort of thing before - just not set in such an unusual locale. 'Chernobyl Diaries' delivers on atmosphere - at least, during the first. That's not surprising considering that Oren Peli of 'Paranormal Activity' fame is a producer.
For a film with radioactive bears running around, it's often strangely dull, though the final descent into the concrete maw of the reactor itself is memorably hellish.
A rote run-and-scream wannabe scarefest that fails to deliver more than rudimentary chills.
Someone should bury Chernobyl Diaries deep underground in a lead-lined box so it cannot contaminate any more film goers.
There is a scary and surreal appearance by a bear.
A second-rate horror from Paranormal Activity writer Oren Peli.
Diaries is dark and gruesome, but with little in the way of genuine shock or surprise, you should expect the expected.
Audience Reviews for Chernobyl Diaries
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Uri: Levels are good!
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- Uri: Tell me if you see something moving in the water.
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- Amanda: My friends are idiots.
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- Chris: It's a hazard to have you as my brother!
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- Uri: I work alone.
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- Chris: Here we go.
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Alternate Ending | 2 months ago | 1 |
Latest News on Chernobyl Diaries
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May 24, 2012:
Five Favorite Films with Director-Producer Oren PeliFilmmaker Oren Peli caused something of a box-office sensation with his no-budget, found footage...
May 24, 2012:
10 Horror Movie Locations You Can Actually VisitIn honor of this weekend's "Chernobyl Diaries."
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Foreign Titles
- Chroniques de Tchernobyl (FR)
- Atrapados en Chernóbil (ES)
From the offset, you're introduced to some 'cool' kids who'll annoy the hell out of you immediately. Nothing is believable, none of the characters connect with you or each other. I hated the characters so much I was literally waiting for them to be lynched by the monsters. The only characters/actors I appreciated was a tour guy who takes them to Chernobyl and a hippie Australian who tags along with his hollow girlfriend.
Not surprising (and this was the reason I went to see the movie) was the fact the movie improved ten-fold when they arrive in Chernobyl. The location is astonishingly eerie and you can easily believe the myths of mutants living there. Here the film actually becomes scary to some extent and you feel yourself tensing up.
Until of course, the actors interrupt your concentration with some appalling, predictable stuff.
And so the finale winds down with your typical 'running blindly (literally at the very end), being chased by hordes of evil freaks'. And characters don't die so much as get whisked away into the darkness. Whenever the movie builds up to something scary, it's always undone by a disappointing result, leaving you a little bit deflated each time.
2 Stars 4-5-13