Have we now come to the segment of horror history in which we now just play along as if we are watching a documentary when it’s clear that we are not? Sure, we have the no name cast, the real-life previously undiscovered threat, the intimate camera angles and the crappy production values, but we have lost all pretense that this is real. In lieu of a cast member/cameraman, we have an actual cameraman. Is this good? I dunno. The “let’s pretend we’re in a documentary” has certainly gotten old. But then why can’t we get a decent shot of anything?
Four nondescript Americans find themselves in Ukraine. The chief idiot among them suddenly announces over breakfast, “I know a guy who can take us to Chernobyl!” And whaddayaknow? Field trip! Hey, are we not in Europe to see the sights? At the “tourist agency,” they meet guide Uri and two other morons and the seven all pile into the kind of vehicle used as a bus in third world countries to check out Pripyat, the town abandoned in April of 1986 when a nuclear reactor exploded 
less than a kilometer away.
After eluding the border guards who issue the standard horror-film warning, the septet finds the unmanned back door into Pripyat, but first stopping for some R&R at a nearby lake with mutant fish. When the hideous, presumed-dead demon fish flinches, you want to say, “that’s f***ed up.” But there isn’t any part of a trip to Chernobyl rooted in a non-f***ed up reality. You want to visit a radiated ghost town on your European tour? Go right ahead. Personally, I’d rather hit Helsinki, but hey, one man’s loo is another man’s Louvre.
Funny part is the town looks like it consisted entirely of a set of college dorms. Did no one own a market, house or shop of any kind? Ah, socialism, or, ah, mock-pretend-abandoned socialism. The ghost town is exactly that. A dead, fleshless nondescript animal greets our visitors at the foot of a dorm. And they go in anyway. Sure, why not? After hearing a spooky rattle in an adjacent room, we find a very non-dead, fleshy and hairy full size Russian bear charging through the dorm. I guess radiation doesn’t affect bears.
Radiation also doesn’t affect common sense. But if ya ain’t got none to start, it probably doesn’t matter what ya did with it. These movies don’t work if people make intelligent and conservative choices. Naturally, incrediVan is discovered in disrepair when everybody returns, so here’s the scene: seven adults, one non-working car, and night falling in a spooky, abandoned town 20 K from nowhere (well, it was visible and relatively close from the guard checkpoint, but we won’t mention that) — all that’s missing is people splitting up, which happens, I swear, within 60 seconds of the discovery of broken van.
Biggest problem with Chernobyl Diaries is not the nondescript menace, the blurry action shots, the underwritten screenplay or the bleak cinematography. The biggest problem continues to be, seriously, the difficulty in finding a rooting interest — if you’re stupid enough to choose to holiday in Chernobyl, you probably deserve what you get.
Rated R, 88 Minutes
D: Bradley Parker
W: Oren Peli, Carey Van Dyke, Shane Van Dyke
Genre: Mock pretend documentary horror
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Nuclear fallout mutants
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Tourists
