Product Description
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Chernobyl Diaries (DVD)
Oren Peli, the creator of Paranormal Activity, Insidious and
televisions The River, brings forth a new and entirely
compelling vision of terror. Based upon an original story by
Peli, CHERNOBYL DIARIES is set in the Russian city of Prypiat
that once housed the workers of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. In
this xenophobic horror-thriller, a group of friends, vacationing
in Europe, find themselves stranded in the eerie, abandoned
city... only to discover that they are not alone. In the
aftermath of nuclear disaster years before, nature has be to
recl everything. And as the sun sets on this desolate ghost
town, inhuman cries cut through the night air. Nature may have
taken hold of the radioactive ghost town, but the supernatural
stalks the streets in search of new blood.
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A big part of the marketing pitch for Chernobyl Diaries is that
it sprang from the mind of Oren Peli (cowriter and producer), the
creative force responsible for birthing a new genre of "reality"
horror with Paranormal Activity. Chernobyl Diaries doesn't follow
the same Paranormal rules of pretending as though what we're
seeing is genuine found footage of something horrific, or
documentary evidence of actual supernatural events. But it does
stick to the general rules of the slick new breed of horror
movies that force a more immediate sense of dread by placing us
within the action in periods of real time. Added to that is the
stylistic use of jangly hand-held camera, natural light, and
nerve-wracking glimpses of action that mimic the unsettling
effect of peripheral vision. The setup is as old as Friday the
13th: a group of beautiful young bodies trapped in an island
environment are gruesomely knocked off one at a time by a barely
seen vengeful presence. A couple of movies have exploited the
creepy potential of the deathly ghost town of Chernobyl and the
adjacent city of Pripyat, where the doomed nuclear workers
lived, but none with such an air of hair-raising authenticity
(there's lots of seamless digital background fakery, and the
actual stand-in filming location was Serbia). Four American
friends and a pair of European travelers take a
spur-of-the-moment "extreme tourism" visit to the wasteland city
with a mysterious Russian guide based in Kiev, only to be turned
away by Russian authorities when the vanload of them try to enter
through the main gate. Undeterred, they find a back way in and at
first have lots of creepy fun wandering the ominously desolate
ruins, with nary a thought for the clacking of a Geiger counter
or the strange signs that they may be under surveillance. The big
trouble begins when they find the van sabotaged, stranding them
overnight while feral dogs, psychotic bears, and possibly
something more sinister circle around to mess with their minds
and their bodies. It all ends very badly over the course of the
next day and night. The presence of mutated creatures is hinted
at, and they're briefly seen in the dank corners and dusty halls
of abandoned apartment flats, institutional chambers, or
industrial warehouses that have become home to ghastly
inhabitants in the intervening years since the nuclear accident.
While not a classic of the genre, Chernobyl Diaries makes
excellent use of its premise and surroundings to keep the tension
high. Horribly rendered things happen unexpectedly on the edges
of the frame or just out of from a flashlight beam or
around the corner of a decaying concrete slab. A whiff of
conspiracy is suggested when the Russian authorities make brief
appearances, but the more disturbing and effective es grow
from the threat of activity that's a result of the paranormal
elements in a story and a place where no hess, numskulled
young thing should dare tread. --Ted Fry