Directed by: Brad Parker

Starring: Jesse McCartney, Johnathan Sadowski, Olivia Dudley

Insufferable American shitbags meet out-of-focus radioactive cannibals in this hapless shocker from the creator of Paranormal Activity.

Much like Oren Peli’s ghost-nonsense series, Chernobyl Diaries is predictable and bland, somehow flattening the irradiated city of Pripyat’s built in atmosphere into a run-of-the-mill slasher, except without any of the occasional gore and tension the genre normally provides.

Aside from a chance encounter with a bear and the slight whiff of government conspiracy at the conclusion, this is little more than an hour and a half tour through various horror cliché’s, from creepy kids and broken down cars to melty-faced mutants and flickering torches.

With a forgettable, nameless cast, unfathomably confusing cinematography, awful characters and dialogue only slightly less catastrophic than Reactor 4 itself, Chernobyl Diaries is a forgettable addition to the found footage genre.

Chernobyl Diaries could have been so much more in the hands of anybody else, and that’s perhaps what depresses me most.

1/5