Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: Despite an interesting premise and spooky atmospherics, Chernobyl Diaries is mostly short on suspense and originality.
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Cast
as Zoe
as Uri
as Natalie
as Amanda
as Chris
as Michael
as Paul
as Russian Check Point Guard
as Ukrainian Thug
as Ukrainian Thug
as Ukrainian Thug
as Restaurant Owner
as Little Girl
as Medic Goldshimdt
as Medic Grotzky
as Doctor
as Humanoid
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Critic Reviews for Chernobyl Diaries
All Critics (85) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (15) | Rotten (70) | 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.
Director 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.
Audience Reviews for Chernobyl Diaries
Cannot even believe I paid to see this.
Super Reviewer
Bad acting, predictable scares, insipid writing, and utterly devoid of any compelling suspense or surprises; this horror schlock wastes away its eerie premise to become a lackluster rip-off of 'The Hills Have Eyes'.
Super Reviewer
Straight to the point: Chernobyl Diaries has some of the worst acting/script/motivations I have seen in a movie, along with incredibly predictable 'scares'. YET, it has probably the best untapped location of any horror. 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
Super Reviewer
Chernobyl Diaries Quotes
| Uri: | The people were not even given 5 minutes to collect their personal possessions. |
| Uri: | Levels are good! |
| Uri: | Tell me if you see something moving in the water. |
| Amanda: | My friends are idiots. |
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