#36 - Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
(dir. Bradley Parker)
A group of American students travelling in the Ukraine decide to take an "extreme tour" of Pripyat, the abandoned town near the site of the Chernobyl disaster. Due to lingering radiation levels, they can only stay a few hours, but when they go to leave they find that their vehicle has been sabotaged. As dark approaches, they are unable to hike out because of the local wolves and bears, but they soon find that there is a more immediate threat - the town isn't as abandoned as they had thought.
There was some controversy over this film when it was released, as many people saw it as exploiting the tragedy that occurred at Chernobyl. While I agree that the title and marketing are definitely exploitative, I thought that the film itself actually handles the subject fairly well. The portrayal of Pripyat here is somber, and the film makes it clear that the characters were wrong to come there. Compare this to, say, the Pripyat we see in the Call of Duty games, where the abandoned town is nothing more than a "cool" backdrop for players to shoot at each other in.
This wasn't a great film, but it was better than I had expected it to be. It isn't shot as found-footage, but the cinematography definitely takes some queues from that style, which gives it a sense of realism that I thought worked really well. The third act is kind of weak, as it turns from creepy and thoughtful to more straight-up action/horror, but overall I thought this was a pretty good movie.
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