Chernobyl Diaries

Once the annoying, two-dimensional characters start getting bumped off one by one, it's just a relief that the actors have stopped improvising their own banal dialogue.

Director Bradley Parker shakes his camera around a lot.

The real stars of the movie are the tired devices and plot points. They're famous, but they're as old as Betty White: The Guide Is Dead, The Van Won't Start, Her Shirt Has a Plunging Neckline, Don't Go in There.

Standard-issue genre accessories (dank stairways, flashlights, overcast skies, frosty windows) abound; shocks are mild and few.

You might actively root for their collective demise, if you could rouse yourself to care one way or the other. Go gallivanting in Chernobyl and you get what you pay for, nimrods.

First-time director Bradley Parker (working from a script co-written by Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli) understands that suggesting is scarier than showing, and confusion generates more suspense than explanations do.

For all its familiar ideas, characters, and scares, Chernobyl Diaries earns points on restraint, mood, and location.

A cool concept is compromised when this film descends into predictable territory.

After one effective scene involving a radiated Russian bear, the quality of first-time director Bradley Parker's narrative starts melting down like a TEPCO facility.

There's nothing but many empty scares and zero resolution...

Its strengths make it worth paying attention to, while its weaknesses prevent it from becoming the first-class chiller it had the potential to be.

Unsatisfactory both as a low-budget schlocker and as a piece of entertainment.