I’m a huge sucker for movies about mutation and messed up crap happening to the human body- such that a book took 16 years and counting of my life somewhat on the very subject. But there are some ideas, some stories that I swear no one really thinks of the basic logic behind them. Case in point- who in the fuck would randomly visit the site of Chernobyl as a casual tourist stop? I know many horror movies take a leap of faith of some kind to get going but I think a group of young Americans saying “let’s visit Chernobyl”- site of one of the world’s worst nuclear incidents and still well contaminated to this day is stretching it.
Essentially that’s the plot in a nutshell: four friends are traveling through Europe and before hitting Moscow, one of them meets a old Russian soldier named Yuri that offers to show them sites many don’t get to see- the ruins of Chernobyl. The group, with Yuri and two other tourists goes and sees the vast, abandoned landscapes and deformed fish in the streams, but it seems they ain’t alone. Can they survive being hunted while being hit by the radioactive fallout?
While there are good pieces, as a complete product this movie is just silly. I liked the scenery and feeling of tense isolation. I liked the deformed fish in the stream and the WTF jump scare with the bear ( oh yes, that’s a thing.) That’s about it. The plot is ludicrous and I couldn’t feel shit for the characters because they were dumbasses to be in that situation in the first place. The movie is piled thick with jump scares and shaky cam whenever something does happen, but it’s not a found footage film. I can’t recommend this unless you are drinking or you need a bad movie night but stay away from it like its radioactive otherwise. May the gaming gods bring you glory.
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