The Chernobyl Diaries
I love horror movies. I do… but recently I’ve found myself with clammy hands and my fingers tightly in my ears. Does this mean that in my advancing years I am becoming less a fan of being scared or have horror movies become dependent on loud crashing shock scenes to scare instead of filling you with dread the entire time? I prefer to choose the latter as it makes me someone with sensitive ears and not a wuss who is afraid of something not really happening to me. It may not explain the clammy hands but I’m willing to overlook that in the interest of appearing manlier. I may be on the verge of a crashing scare of reality when I realize that being scared is not as fun as it once was. Yet I feel I am on to something as well. How many times can a cat come crashing out of nowhere to scare the crap out of you? I mean the odds of a cat being in a hiding spot and then screeching out hissing and making loads of noise all at the one time the killer is stalking you has to be astronomical. What are they saying about the virginal women that own all these cats too? I don’t like it. Movies like The Ring, The Blair Witch Project, and Paranormal Activity build suspense and atmosphere rather than just blatantly throwing cats at screens.
The Chernobyl Diaries employs the banging crashes to make you scream but also creates an atmosphere of eerie calm throughout the majority of the film that is scarier than the actual mutant radioactive creatures that attack the unlucky tourists. Oh those hapless rubes who sign up for an ex Russian special forces Operative’s tour of the empty town just outside of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant that went critical and “became one with the air.” Chris ( Jesse McCartney, who channels a Growing Pains sized Leonardo DiCaprio), his girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Taylor Dudley), their mutual friend Amanda are travelling across Europe and stop in Kiev to visit Chris’ brother Paul (played with normal a-hole appeal by Jonathan Sadowski). Chris is getting ready to propose to Natalie when they reach Moscow. One may wonder why not in Paris. Well you obviously have never seen Russia, with vast open spaces of nothing and scary ghost towns filled with creepy Russian guys that love the “beyoutiful American guuurls”. That, my friends is romance. The kids party like all stupid horror movie kids and the next morning Paul comes to them with the idea of a lifetime. Why go to Moscow, where all that can happen is Chris starts the next chapter of his life with the woman he loves, when you can visit a dead town where everything is dead and there is only a moderate chance you’ll end up glowing in the dark? I file this is my “Fuuuuuuuck No!” file. Travelling across Europe is plenty adventure enough. I’d love to see Russia but do I need to travel out past the armed guards and visit a barren wasteland where a car breaking down could drastically change my life for the worse? Fuuuuuck no!
Yet this movie depends on it and when we arrive at Pripyat (which lays in the shadow of Chernobyl) it is every bit as eerie and chilling as a place like that should be. Where there is no life, no birds, mutant fishes, where nature has reclaimed the land. They climb through the empty buildings and look out over the city to see the Chernobyl Power Plant so close. It really does chill you. The town is dead and the atmosphere the movie creates makes you feel as though anyone who enters it must die as well. The rest of the movie is classic horror movie stunts where people jump out of nowhere to crash into windows and one of the kids is hurt so he cannot hike out making it nearly impossible for the group to hike out on their own. There are plenty of plot contrivances that only horror movies seem to have. Why does Uri (the Russian tourguide) hide the remains of a fire in one of the abandoned building and why doesn’t he just refund the tourists when the guards tell them they cannot pass? Why does Paul, knowing that his brother plans to propose in Moscow, instead take them to Pripyat?
So as with any review of a movie, does this movie need to be seen? If you like horror movies and can look past the plot holes, sure. If you don’t like horror movies and would see this because your boyfriend wants to, you’ll probably think it was stupid. The truth is that it lies somewhere in between where atmosphere creates fear and the people involved are simply there. All I know is that when my brother moves to Kiev and I go visit him with the girl I am gonna marry and he says “Hey Mr. Unhappy, instead of going to Moscow and proposing let’s drive out to a semi radioactive town in the shadow of one of the biggest nuclear blunders of all time” I will both punch him in the testicles and tell him quite simply “Fuuuuuuck Nooooo!”
Mr. Unhappy sez: I might look forward to a documentary about Pripyat but as a scene of horrific scenes, this movie delivers. The horrific acts that happen in the movie, not so much.
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