One of the few horrific facts about the low-budget monster pic Chernobyl Diaries is that it went through the hands of a seasoned (or maybe after this, not so anymore) horror filmmaker Oren Peli, the clever mind behind the mighty onslaught of Paranormal Activity movies. If serving any consolation, Peli remained as clever as screenwriter and producer of the pic, only he embraced tighter idiocy and dumbness, or maybe this came in naturally. In Paranormal, he was given a small setting, small script and small adventures; small spaces to do atrociously at. In Chernobyl, however, he's placed in the reasonably huge abandoned Ukranian city of Pripyat, where a radiation incident occured twenty-five years or so ago.
Director Brad Parker shot scenes in the exact European city, which makes up a great contribution to the verisimilitude of the film. This, and the expertly built characters in sum constructs a terrific premise that will eventually boulder down after forty-something minutes. By that time, we already knew that the characters are in certitude otherwise than what we initially thought about them, and that they are comprised of six twenty-somethings. Four friends, two brothers - the fun and virtuous Chris (Jesse McCartney, whose existence in this film, up to now, is a mystery to me. He's admittedly serviceable though), and the outgoing and obnoxious Paul (Jonathan Sadowski) - and two BFF's - Chris's serious girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and the recently singled Amanda (Devin Kelley). An Aussie couple, Michael (Nathan Philipps) and Zoe (Ingrid Bolso Berdal).
None of these characters are three-dimensional, so it's only natural to think fiendish and want to make an advancement to their imminent ordeal. But the realistic settings, quite a lot of research has been made, I can presume, and the atmospherics well-compensates these characters who also happen to make the dumb decisions we always see in the weaker side of the genre. Peli has this innate talent in setting out the mood, eerie and restraint, and then finally drops the big scare - a thing obviously Parker now practices too.
There's an ample supply of words you can describe Chernobyl Diaries, how bad or good could it go. And quite frankly, whether you describe it eloquently, or casually, descriptions will be the same of a deal. Chernobyl Diaries, much like the city it's set on, this movie, no matter how sad it would get, how big of a waste of opportunity it is, after this mishap, it's likely to be vanished off the face of the earth. B-
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