Chernobyl Diaries
I blame Andrei Tarkovsky for my desire to watch “Chernobyl Diaries.”
Admittedly, the idea of blaming the late, Russian master for my personal choice in moviewatching seems odd, but truthfully, my fascination with Chernobyl, the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, does begin with Tarkovsky. In particular, it was his 1979 film, “Stalker,” that paved the way. That film followed three men into an abandoned, desolate stretch of land known as “The Zone,” which would play tricks on them, but could also– it was said –grant them their fondest desires. In “Stalker,” it was speculated that “The Zone” was created as a result of the failure of the 4th bunker…the same one that, seven years after the film’s release, resulted in the Chernobyl disaster.
Although it’s impossible to take “Chernobyl Diaries’s” cast of brain-dead protagonists seriously after “The Cabin in the Woods” dissected and recontextualized the same, basic premise “Diaries” ends up following, the film managed to hold my interest, and even keep me edgy, throughout. For that, all credit must go to Oren Peli, the director of “Paranormal Activity,” and this film’s producer and co-writer. Peli understands the power of darkness in the realm of horror better than anyone in modern horror filmmaking, and he uses the night, and the shadows, to illicit terror better than any filmmakers since the creators of “The Blair Witch Project.” Unfortunately, this film’s scares are fairly easily telegraphed for anyone with a passing familiarity of the genre, but Peli and director Bradley Parker use the setting of Pripyat (the abandoned city next to the Chernobyl reactor), as well as the facts of the disaster itself, to lure both their protagonists in, as well as their audience. There are some truly haunting, beautiful shots in this film (ones that equal some of those in Tarkovsky’s “Stalker,” which I wouldn’t be surprised to learn if it inspired this film), and as I said, their use of the dark, which covers dangers which cannot be seen, is as effective here as it was in the likes of “Blair Witch Project” and the original “Cat People.” Ultimately, however, the film is an average, and barely terrifying, genre offering, but I can’t blame Peli for that; he didn’t know “Cabin in the Woods” was lying in wait to ruin the genre for all that followed.
