To set up the dire situation, we meet four friends, Chris (Jesse McCartney), big brother Paul (Jonathan Sadowski), girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Dudley), friend Amanda (Devin Kelley) and fellow travellers Michael (Nathan Phillips) and Zoe (Ingrid Bolso Berdal), as they go on a bit of ‘extreme tourism’ to Chernobyl. The film is unbelievably slow in getting to the point and, instead of spending precious minutes building the tension for later, we spend it in the company of six barely written and pretty annoying characters. The best thing about the first half of the film is creepy tour guide Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko), who is the most authentic and believable thing about it. While the six young-uns are skipping about and speaking inanities, we’re actually disturbed by the worried look on Uri’s face, and the character provides some much needed comic relief in this otherwise unnecessarily po-faced effort. Once he and the group are separated, the film takes a turn for the worse and never recovers. To say the scares are lame is an understatement, as the outside forces attacking them in their van turn out to be ordinary wolves and big brown bears. Certainly these are frightening things if faced in real life, but to make them the main threat in a location as rife with possibilities as Chernobyl is just wasteful. Once they’re out of the way, the obvious starts appearing, but it’s too little too late, and the film can’t can’t recover from the false scares and disappointments in earlier scenes. Even fans of simple horror will find Chernobyl Diaries hard to like, as there’s nothing new here to latch on to or enjoy. It doesn’t even feel contemporary, in the way that Paranormal Activity did so well, and the fake scares and banal dialogue just end up grating. The only smart thing the film does is to keep the threat out of sight, the audience only allowed to catch glimpses here and there, but it’s not enough to make up for the crushing frustration the rest of it leaves behind. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
title: “Chernobyl Diaries Review” ShowToc: true date: “2025-07-16” author: “Johnnie Beers”
To set up the dire situation, we meet four friends, Chris (Jesse McCartney), big brother Paul (Jonathan Sadowski), girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Dudley), friend Amanda (Devin Kelley) and fellow travellers Michael (Nathan Phillips) and Zoe (Ingrid Bolso Berdal), as they go on a bit of ‘extreme tourism’ to Chernobyl. The film is unbelievably slow in getting to the point and, instead of spending precious minutes building the tension for later, we spend it in the company of six barely written and pretty annoying characters. The best thing about the first half of the film is creepy tour guide Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko), who is the most authentic and believable thing about it. While the six young-uns are skipping about and speaking inanities, we’re actually disturbed by the worried look on Uri’s face, and the character provides some much needed comic relief in this otherwise unnecessarily po-faced effort. Once he and the group are separated, the film takes a turn for the worse and never recovers. To say the scares are lame is an understatement, as the outside forces attacking them in their van turn out to be ordinary wolves and big brown bears. Certainly these are frightening things if faced in real life, but to make them the main threat in a location as rife with possibilities as Chernobyl is just wasteful. Once they’re out of the way, the obvious starts appearing, but it’s too little too late, and the film can’t can’t recover from the false scares and disappointments in earlier scenes. Even fans of simple horror will find Chernobyl Diaries hard to like, as there’s nothing new here to latch on to or enjoy. It doesn’t even feel contemporary, in the way that Paranormal Activity did so well, and the fake scares and banal dialogue just end up grating. The only smart thing the film does is to keep the threat out of sight, the audience only allowed to catch glimpses here and there, but it’s not enough to make up for the crushing frustration the rest of it leaves behind. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
