Low-budget fright flicks have become a part of our culture since 1999’s Blair Witch Project. A good number of these the majority of the public has never heard of because the completed product goes straight to video. Another batch makes it to the big screen, some of which we convince ourselves to see (The Fog, Darkness, Feardotcom), and after 20 minutes, we wish it had gone straight to video and never heard of it. Then there is the small group of these movies you cannot just tolerate but come to enjoy for whatever reason. The best example is 2005’s The Descent, which saw a group of six 20-something females trapped in a cavern on a girls’ getaway weekend and hunted by a force that lives in the dark. This movie was an instant classic and still a top-five horror movie. Chernobyl Diaries is nowhere close to The Descent, but it still offers many of the same elements that made this movie successful. It offered a small group of no-name actors. It was set in a location where you could suspend your beliefs and start to believe that anything is possible. There are the slowly developing scenes where you know something bad is about to happen, and you are just sitting there wondering what that will be and when it will occur. Finally, it has a handful of jump-out-your-seat moments. For these reasons, I give Chernobyl Diaries a positive review and would encourage low-budget horror fans to check it out.
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