This had some decent thrills but also mixed with some hilariously stupid ones and the ending is a completely stupid cop out. *1/2

Devin Kelley is smokin' though

Ingrid Bolso Berdal (the Norwegian girl) is hotter than Kelley, in my opinion.

The best scare is definitely the scene with the bear. It's ridiculous, but also zany and feels...honest, fresh. Everything with the zombie mutant Communists is SO tired and flat.

Review: http://www.worldofkj.com/article.php?i=730

Between this and The River, Oren Peli's name in the credits is almost becoming a threat more than a promise.

It's strange how quickly bad or mediocre movies leave your system. I know I saw this last month, but it's a total blur in my mind. I remember the bear scene. I remember the ending. But the rest? Indistinct.

You haven't seen Area 51 yet. Just wait.

This. Was. Awful. It was terribly boring, the scares are pretty much non-existent (I have to admit the bear scene got me), and the ending is just horrible. But I honestly didn't care because I was just glad the movie was over.

3/10 (D-)

There's a lot of screaming. There's a lot of crying. And I wanted everyone to die.

I have one quick thing to say about the beginning before I start with my basic problem with the film: Tourism to Chernobyl and Prypiat exists. I don't think that's exactly a well known fact, but I became interested in about the Chernobyl disaster by reading about it on Wikipedia and found out about the tourism that way. The tourists who usually show up are "extreme tourism" junkies. They know what they're getting in to and they know all the precautions. The kids in this film just go to Prypiat because it sounds awesome. Not even a little bit of research is done on their part. WHO THE FUCK JUST GETS UP AND GOES TO CHERNOBYL? I get that in horror movies you have to have stupid kids or people in order to have a horror movie, but the characters in this film...they're so fucking stupid. Not one of them was smart enough to wiki Chernobyl before going?

Then we're treated to dumb sentences like, "Oh it's so quiet." and "I wonder why there aren't any birds?". IT'S A FUCKING NUCLEAR DISASTER SITE YOU DUMB FUCK. There isn't any nature there. Then of course the movie loses any sense of reality and we get a bear roaming through an abandoned building, fucked up radiated fish, and roaming dogs. The radiation levels are low enough sometimes to allow for human visits (up to two hours at a time according to the movie), but nature doesn't grow two hours at a time. Why there is any sort of life there is beyond me.

Lets get to my main problem with the film though. The basic premise is flawed. Lets forget about Oren Peli taking complete advantage of a tragedy. An abandoned city should lead to awesome set design. There should be loads of fun to be had just by staring at the screen. But standard horror settings say that in order to truly be scary, the film should probably take place in the dark. We're all scared of the dark. Dark equals scary. And there goes any fun that could've been had with the set design. If the entire movie is in there dark there is hardly going to be anything to look at. Which goes back to the original premise of the movie. Why set the film in an abandoned city if you can't see any of it? If The Walking Dead has proven anything, it's that zombies during the day can still be effective.

Should I even talk about the ending? Why would the Ukrainians keep a bunch of deformed people affected by the radiation in one jail cell? To kill one another? Then why not just kill them. You probably can't do many medical experiments on them and they're living a zombie life. Why are they keeping them alive? Just for that final shot?

This is just a horrible movie.

No Stars

So you're telling me this movie has phony science.

Shocking, I know. It's hardly the reason this is a bad movie though.

Yeah, I actually was really excited to see this movie. I thought it looked like a lot of fun. I wanted to see it so much that I ended up seeing it in theaters by myself. I was very, very close to walking out and I probably would have if I wasn't curious how it would end since I heard it was so terrible. It's not even the actors at fault here, it's just a terrible, terrible movie. Honestly one of the worst movies I've ever seen and the RIDICULOUS ending made it that much worse. Also, I can't remember the last time a horror movie dragged so much. This thing felt about three hours long.

1/10

I don't know. Maybe I'm being way too harsh on it, but I really hated it.