Oh those silly Americans and their vacations. Didn't anybody learn anything from Hostel? Or Taken? Or Turistas? Ok, maybe not that last one, but surely the point is when taking a little vacay in a foreign land to just be smart and stay in your hotel room, otherwise you're going to wind up dead. Chernobyl Diaries is the latest film from horror mastermind, Oren Peli, who rose to prominence as the creator of Paranormal Activity. So you have him to thank for all those cheaply produced, "found footage" flicks that never seem to go away. Cherynobyl Diaries isn't one of them, though, as the film eschews the easy gimmick in favor of quality production, genuine thrills, and an offbeat edge that helps alleviate some of the familiarity.
The strangeness begins like so many of these movies do, with images of a happier time, as three friends photograph their way around Europe. The reliable and whiny Chris(Jesse McCartney) has brought along girlfriend and potential fiance, Natalie(Olivia Taylor Dudley), to spend some time in Kiev, Russia with his his older, irresponsible brother, Paul(Jonathan Sadowski). Their beautiful, newly single friend, Amanda(Devin Kelley), has joined them in hopes of getting over the recent break up, and all go out for a night on the town. A simple trip to Moscow is planned for the next day, but that isn't enough for Paul, who is desperate to find some adventure and impress his guests, so he hooks up with a bullet-headed "extreme tour guide" named Uri(Dimitri Diatchenko), who has a trip in mind for them that we all know they'll regret right away. They're soon joined by another pair of thrill seekers, who will get all the action they crave and more.After a slow build up, it's with Uri's arrival that the pace begins to pick up, and so does the suspense. His trip takes them to the abandoned town of Pripyat, an actual ghost town just outside the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Bradley Walker, who is directing the film from Peli's original story, does a fantastic job of setting the mood merely by panning through the site of the abandoned town, which at one time held as many as 50,000 people, all forced to evacuate within a span of hours after the 1986 incident. Much of the infrastructure is still in place, including playgrounds and parks, and there's an uncomfortable eeriness that hangs over every frame. Skirting their way around the armed guards warning them not to enter the town, they get a few hours of sight seeing with only a few minor blips to be concerned about. Oh, like the dead dog at the doorway of one of the buildings, and that strangely mutated fish just lying around. As for the radiation levels? It's not really a factor......yet.
After Joss Whedon's The Cabin the Woods, movies that start off feeling as generic as Chernobyl Diaries does are to be taken less seriously than ever, but Peli and Walker do a good job of whipping up some real surprise twists. Guaranteed this is the only film you'll see this year(or ever) with a mutant radioactive bear stampeding through a building. The tourists and their overconfident guide are soon left stranded when the van is tampered with by somebody, and stuck in that ghostly town with no power and no way out things quickly turn desperate. Those moments when they're stuck inside the van, with absolutely no clue what to do next are brilliant for a number of reasons. Personalities clash in the confined, claustrophobic vehicle in ways that send the plot in a myriad of directions. But also, Walker does a great job of filming those scenes from the inside, decreasing our field of vision and putting you right there in the action. We all know there's something out there that's stalking them, and being unable to see anything makes it all the more terrifying.For much of the film, Chernobyl Diaries is actually a better, more effective film than Paranormal Activity. This isn't a bunch of doors being slammed or windows rattling. There's a tangible, physical threat that's looking to do real harm. Peli's story, co-written by Carey and Shane Van Dyke(Titanic II), doesn't reach very far or look to do anything new, and that limitation does hurt the film at times, especially when the bodies start to stack up. An intriguing wrinkle thrown into the mix is a "beat the clock' style component, as the tourists must not only fight off their attackers, but find a way out of town before the rising radiation levels makes survival a moot point.
Peli is a smart man when it comes to horror movies, and he knows how to use Chernobyl's rich mythology and fantasy, which has only grown in the same way as Roswell and Area 51(Peli's next film, coincidentally). There aren't a lot of cheap, quick-cut scares, nor a lot of gore. The ending, however, seems rushed and slapped together so badly that it puts The Devil Inside's laughable conclusion to shame. Fortunately, it's not enough to totally derail what is a solid, well-made, and often spooky summer horror.
