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Released by: Warner Brothers
Released on: October 16, 2012.
Director: Bradley Parker
Cast: Jesse McCartney, Olivia Dudley, Devin Kelley, Jonathan Sadowski
Year: 2012
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The Movie:
Bradley Parker's 2012 film Chernobyl Diaries got pretty much universally slagged when it hit theaters earlier this year and it's easy to see why some were disappointed in the picture. Now that it's out on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Brothers… is it really as bad as some would have you believe?
The movie follows a young man named Chris (Messe McCartney) who travels to Europe with his girlfriend Natalia (Olivia Dudley) and her best friend Amanda (Devin Kelley) to meet up with his older brother Paul (Jonathan Sadowski). The initial plan is for Paul to take the four of them to Moscow where Chris intends to propose, but when he meets an ex-special forces operative named Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko) he suggests they change their plans and take a two hour tour of the abandoned city of Prypiat, left empty after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown that happened roughly twenty-five years ago.
Chris objects to the idea but is outvoted by the two girls. At Uri's office they meet an Australian surfer dude named Michael (Nathan Phillips) and his Norwegian girlfriend Zoe (Ingrid Bolsí¸ Berdal) and pile into Uri's old van for the tour. Though the guards stationed at the entrance to Prypiat turn them away, Uri knows a back way in and before you know it, the group is wandering around with a Geiger counter photographing some amazing ruins. As night sets in, however, the tourists finds themselves stranded when Uri's van won't start. As you could probably figure out, given that this is a horror movie and all, the buildings at Prypiat are not as abandoned as they thought and the living remnants of the Chernobyl incident are not at all friendly.
Filmed on location throughout Serbia and Hungary (not in Russia, though they double for it well), this movie is all about location, location, location. The story itself is pretty derivative, it's a mix of The Blair Witch Project and The Descent and it often goes for the lowest common denominator in terms of how it tries to scare the audience - that being the tried and true jump scare. Anyone who has spent even a short amount of time in or around large abandoned structures can tell you that you'll very often get the feeling that you are no alone, and sometimes that feeling will prove true. The movie plays up on this aspect of its premise rather well, even if it never quite cashes in on the potential that it shows in this regard.
Shot with a lot of handheld camerawork the movie never gets as dizzying as something like The Silent House or the aforementioned Blair Witch Project. This was likely in an attempt to give it a found footage look and feel, though the movie never asks us to believe that this is the case, which makes the decision rather odd. The performances are decent if not all that memorable and the finale builds rather well - but the movie isn't as intense or as frightening as it could and should have been.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Chernobyl Diaries looks about as good as it should on Blu-ray, framed here at 1.78.1 widescreen and presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. Detail is pretty solid and black levels are good. Colors are accurate, so expect lots of murky grays and lots of earth tones, there really isn't much pop here but that's more to do with the locations than anything else. Skin tones look good, nice and natural, and there are no issues with compression artifacts to note. This feels like an accurate representation of the theatrical experience.
The main audio option is a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix in the film's original English language, though Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound tracks are also provided in French, Spanish and German with removable subtitles in English SDH, French, Spanish and German. No complaints here, really. If the audio isn't the most immersive you've ever heard it does tend to suit the low-fi nature of the movie rather well. Dialogue stays clear and there are some very effective moments that use the surrounds to nice effect. The levels are well balanced and as you'd expect from a brand new movie like this there are no problems with hiss or distortion. Reference quality? No, it's not quite that immersive, but it does sound very good.
There's really not a whole lot here in terms of extra features, and the best supplement is the two and half minute Chernobyl Conspiracy Viral Video clip that basically just sets up the premise of the movie. Aside from that, we get an alternate ending, a single deleted scene and a fun infomerical for Uri's Extreme Tours. A digital copy and a DVD copy of the movie are also included inside the Blu-ray keepcase that comes housed inside a slipcover. All of the extras on the Blu-ray disc are presented in high definition.
The Final Word:
Chernobyl Diaries isn't reinventing the genre or doing anything we haven't really seen done before but it is tense enough to work and it does a good job of exploiting some very effective locations. Warner's Blu-ray release doesn't offer up much in the way of extras but it looks and sounds quite good.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
