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Nuke-horror hasn’t reared its glowing, mutated head in a couple decades, at least, and Chernobyl is the sort of real-life deathzone that spawns nightmares already, so Chernobyl Diaries certainly has a winning premise.
Unfortunately, it quickly devolves into a series of tired survival horror clichés. A group of Americans on their way to Moscow detour to the abandoned, irradiated Ukraine city of Prypiat for an “extreme tour”.
They get their money’s worth when it turns out to not be as abandoned as they thought. Written by Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli, Diaries is dark and gruesome, but with little in the way of genuine shock or surprise, you should expect the expected.
