Chernobyl Diaries

Chernobyl Diaries is a 2012 American horror film. Oren Peli co-wrote and produced it, while Brad Parker directed it in his first feature film. The cast includes Jonathan Sadowski, Jesse McCartney, Devin Kelley, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Nathan Phillips, and Dimitri Diatchenko. They play a group touring the abandoned Ukrainian town of Pripyat, which was affected by the Chernobyl disaster, where they find a dangerous presence. Filming took place on location, as well as in Hungary and Serbia.

The plot follows Chris, his girlfriend Natalie, and their friend Amanda traveling through Europe. In Kyiv, Ukraine, they visit Chris’s brother Paul, who suggests an extreme tour of Pripyat instead of heading to Moscow. Despite Chris’s objections, Paul insists. Tour guide Uri takes them, along with Norwegian Zoe and Australian Michael, past a military checkpoint via a secret route. At a river, they see a mutated fish. In an abandoned apartment, a bear runs past them. When they try to leave, Uri’s van is sabotaged. At night, Uri investigates noises and is taken. The group barricades in the van. The next day, Paul, Michael, and Amanda find Uri’s body and a photo showing a humanoid creature. After the van is destroyed, the group searches for Chris and Natalie, encountering mutants. Natalie is found traumatized but later dragged away. Michael is captured, Zoe is pulled back into a passage, and Paul and Amanda emerge near the reactor core. Paul is shot by soldiers. Amanda wakes in a hospital, where doctors claim the creatures were escaped asylum patients. They lock her in a cell, where mutants swarm her. An alternate ending shows Amanda with a shaved head and bandages, a victim of radiation poisoning.

Released theatrically on May 25, 2012, by Alcon Entertainment through Warner Bros. Pictures, the film received generally negative reviews for its clichéd formula, characters, and special effects, with some controversy over its depiction of disaster victims. Despite this, it was a moderate box office success, grossing $37 million worldwide on a $1 million budget.