A Constant Visual Feast

Oren Peli, the man behind Paranormal Activity and a driving force in the continued found footage craze, has a new movie out today– this time abandoning the veneer of cinéma vérité in favor of a traditional approach. Placing Bradley Parker in the director’s chair, Oren’s newest script takes us to Prypiat, the town situated near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, now long abandoned and left to the whims of nature; of course, this is horror we’re talking about, so that bit of common knowledge may not actually be accurate. 

So Peli kindly sends a group of travelers to Prypiat to see for themselves whether it’s uninhabited or not, and the trip, expectedly, goes poorly. As does the movie. It’s not too much to ask for some agency and intelligence from a horror film’s cast, even if the ultimate goal is to toss them into harm’s way; it’s possible for characters to be too thick-headed in a movie like this, and that proves to be one of Chernobyl Diaries‘ greatest weaknesses when combined with its habit of over-foreshadowing doom. Head on over to Go, See, Talk! to see my full review.