"Chenobyl Diaries" a fantastic horror movie (SPOILERS!)

[RichA]

I found it engaging. Even the short homage to "It's Alive" was
effective. I believed the characters in this from the Russian tour
guide to the adventurers, even the Leo DiCaprio (sort of) clone who
gets attacked early on. And for once, although there was a
"government conspiracy" it didn't dominate the film, there was no evil
leader pontificating on things here. The fact the American audience
didn't really like it doesn't surprise me, since it didn't end well
and we know Americans (pathetically) need their precious happy
endings.

[moviePig]

Several well-regarded -- even found-footage -- movies have had downer
endings. If there was a sin to this ending, it was sameness.

--

- - - - - - - -
YOUR taste at work...
http://www.moviepig.com

[trotsky]

Whereas Canadians, stuck living in Canada, have given up on happy
endings a long time ago.

Maybe you need to hang out in massage parlors more often.

[trotsky]

Well, duh. It's not "found footage" because people came out of it alive
and left the footage in a closet somewhere.

[nick]

I saw Chernobyl Diaries this afternoon. A holiday, so even if CD is
flopping (and while I haven't seen the box office results, I imagine
it is) the theater was relatively full with a large number of high
school girls and, depressingly, mothers with toddlers (toddlers who
are probably cognizant enough to be scared out of their minds my the
movie). So maybe not the most ideal of viewing circumstances. But
while I thought it was generally well done and the first scare was
about as good a jump scare as you're going to get these days, I'm
getting tired of the downer endings in horror movies.

I don't know what Rich is talking about. Mainstream horror movies
have been having downbeat endings since Saw and Hostel right through
the found footage pictures. Even something as trad as The Woman in
Black had a downbeat ending. The audiences have come to expect it,
but for once I would like a "precious happy ending" in a modern horror
movie.

One thing I learned from Chernobyl Diaries, or maybe I knew it
already: if you feel the need to say, "we need to get out of here
before the radiation kills us," there's a good chance, one way or the
other, you're going to die.

Also despite the complaints last week about AMC, we only got two
trailers, so between the start of the first trailer and the beginning
of CD's end credits, it was a whopping eighty minutes.

[moviePig]

Come to think of it, 'found footage' probably dates back to some
Elizabethan novel comprising a "discovered" diary (...and Trotsky's
right, the downer's almost a given). Meanwhile, I hope you're
reminded of your happily-ever-after wish next time a horror movie
hands you one. My trouble with CD's ending was that it hurled me back
to the HILLS HAVE EYES remake (where I didn't care for it either). Re
the runtime, I gotta say that, for me nowadays, 80 minutes sounds a-
priori good for almost any genre of movie.

[wlah...@gmail.com]

On Monday, May 28, 2012 5:03:04 PM UTC-4, moviePig wrote:

> Come to think of it, 'found footage' probably dates back to some
> Elizabethan novel comprising a "discovered" diary (...and Trotsky's
> right, the downer's almost a given).

Of course it's a given. That's the whole point of the genre, ie, it's "discovered" because the makers are dead. Unlike the Elizabethan diary that might merely be purloined and used to advance the plot, the "found footage" always follows some catastrophic event and is, in a way, part of the plot It's a type of spoiler that is interesting in that you know how it ends but getting there is all the fun.

[RichA]

Doesn't matter, it wasn't a "found footage" movie at all.

[moviePig]

Ironically, though, when I ask Amazon for "lost diary", I get 'The
Lost Diary Of Don Juan'... which I'm guessing ends not too badly...
though getting there seems indeed likely half the fun...

[trotsky]

My bad--was it in fact made by Oren Pelli with two "L's"?

[nick]

The movie Chernobyl Diaries most reminded me of, not in its downbeat
tone but more in its plot, was Raw Meat, the English 70s horror about
cannibals in the London subway system; there's a movie that could do
with a remake.

[moviePig]

I feel like I saw that, but will have to make sure...

[nick]

One of the things that bothered me about Chernobyl Diaries was how
short that second day was. It was like, it's daybreak and we have to
walk thirteen miles to the checkpoint, oops there's dogs in the road,
look, some cables for the van, oh no, it's dark out.

It wasn't until after seeing CD and reading a few of the reviews, how
tacky and offensive the premise was. It didn't bother me but what's
next--survival horror about dumb yuppies fighting 9/11 victim
zombies?

[RichA]

There should be no sacred cows in movies. I admit that some things
might be uncomfortable to see, but then movies are supposed to be art
and art is supposed to get a free pass. People can choose which they
see and which they don't.

[moviePig]

No sacred cows, but no ill-timed insensitivity either. Personally,
I'd have thought Chernobyl was long enough past for this movie, but
maybe there's counter-argument from people only slightly closer to
it. (Regardless, in this context -- and outside a courtroom -- I'd
hesitate to call CD 'art'...)

[nick]

I don't know about any protests but this is one case where truth isn't
stranger than fiction. It's more banal and there's no Yuri with his
"extreme touring":

"Pripyat

The famous abandoned city, which once housed 50,000 residents. Sights
to see are the schools, kindergarten, public buildings and the amazing
cultural palace which contains a swimming pool, cinema and gymnasium,
and overlooks the famous ferris wheel. Hazards are the crumbling
buildings, and decaying wooden floors in places - so be careful. As of
July 2008, most tours will not let you enter the buildings due to
their current structural stability.

Minibus day-trips from Kiev typically stop in the town's center, at
the west end of Lenin Street near the Palace of Culture. Short-term
visitors are confined to the pavement at ground level; if you join one
of these tours, your risk exposure is minimal, but so too is your
exposure to the vast cultural reliquary that is Pripyat. A more in-
depth visit (several days, staying overnight at the InterInform hotel
in Chornobyl, eating meals at the InterInform stolovaya) costs about
$200 per person per day in a group of four (2011). The long-term
visitor is rewarded with considerably more freedom to explore,
accompanied of course by an InterInform guide."

http://wikitravel.org/en/Chernobyl

[moviePig]

"A discount is available for waiver to film persons in your party and
their remains."

[RichA]

The only thing that bothers some mostly anti-nuke lunatics is that
more people didn't die. They don't give a s--- about "sensitivity."
I was a nuke accident, caused by a flawed reactor design (Canada's are
the best which is why more of them are in use than the crap out of
Russia) and a useless, drunken, incompetent group of controllers.
Having said that, I would like to re-iterate for the illiterate, that
the net effect of Chernobyl was not anywhere near as bad as they
thought it would be and contains some notable positives, such as the
cessation of poaching of the wolf population in that region. But just
to pour some negative fuel on the fire, Turkey has a couple of the
same kind of reactors...

[WrongWayWade]

I was sorely disappointed with this and had no sympathy for any of the
characters. It was almost like the only interesting thing was going to be
the order that they died off. And must every fourth line in the movie be
'What the f**k is that?' or 'We need to get the f**k out of here?' The
'payoff' at the end was just boring, even if a trifle unexpected.

I was left cold and felt my money was wasted (and I seldom get that feeling
from most any movie.)

[RichA]

On May 30, 3:26 pm, "WrongWayWade" <rl3166...@excite.com> wrote:
> RichA wrote:
> > I found it engaging.  Even the short homage to "It's Alive" was
> > effective.  I believed the characters in this from the Russian tour
> > guide to the adventurers, even the Leo DiCaprio (sort of) clone who
> > gets attacked early on.  And for once, although there was a
> > "government conspiracy" it didn't dominate the film, there was no evil
> > leader pontificating on things here.  The fact the American audience
> > didn't really like it doesn't surprise me, since it didn't end well
> > and we know Americans (pathetically) need their precious happy
> > endings.
>
> I was sorely disappointed with this and had no sympathy for any of the
> characters.

I had sympathy for the Russian. He was just trying to run a small
business.

[nick]

Especially with all the competition from the professional Chernobyl
tour companies that we never get to see. I bet their vans don't break
down.

[BTR1701]

In article
<5c103100-d062-4538...@st3g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,

And of course, there's the fact that he wasn't Russian. He was Ukrainian.

[BTR1701]

In article
<6b613366-73f9-44e7...@a16g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,

That's what I was thinking. All they had to do was make it through the
first night and then get help from one of the half dozen or so other
tour groups that go through Pripyat every day. I guess the scene where
they were turned away by the gate guards at the beginning was supposed
to take care of that plot hole.

[BTR1701]

In article
<8beec7a6-3cd7-4a1f...@l17g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,

And if your skin is already burning off from radiation exposure, you're
dead already, even if you manage to find a way to escape the mutant
cannibal people.

[BTR1701]

In article
<c9a3198f-89a1-4245...@n42g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,

Like, oh, I don't know... Stoker's "Dracula"?

[BTR1701]

In article
<24bce965-abd9-425d...@k5g2000vbf.googlegroups.com>,

nick <nickmacp...@AOL.com> wrote:

> One of the things that bothered me about Chernobyl Diaries was how
> short that second day was. It was like, it's daybreak and we have to
> walk thirteen miles to the checkpoint, oops there's dogs in the road,
> look, some cables for the van, oh no, it's dark out.
>
> It wasn't until after seeing CD and reading a few of the reviews, how
> tacky and offensive the premise was. It didn't bother me but what's
> next--survival horror about dumb yuppies fighting 9/11 victim
> zombies?

Maybe. Not sure how a skyscraper falling on top of you would turn you
into a zombie, though.

[BTR1701]

In article
<bd600d16-54e2-4a25...@a16g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,

nick <nickmacp...@AOL.com> wrote:

> The long-term visitor is rewarded with considerably more freedom to

> explore...

and a much larger dose of residual radiation.

[Obveeus]

One common version of the zombie trope is that everyone is already infected,
but that symptoms do not manifest until after a person dies.

[moviePig]

On May 31, 12:33 pm, "Obveeus" <Obve...@aol.com> wrote:
> "BTR1701" <atro...@mac.com> wrote:

...or is bitten. (Lots of etiological headstanding to pull that
off...)

[BTR1701]

In article <jq86fv$c20$1...@dont-email.me>, "Obveeus" <Obv...@aol.com>
wrote:

Well, sure. But if the World Trade Center falls on your head, you're
pretty much going to be turned into even less than paste, so your
reanimation potential would be significantly reduced.

In a zombie apocalypse scenario, the 9-11 victims would be the least of
everyone's worries. It would be all the *other* non-victims who died
that day in car crashes and from heart attacks and other random causes
that would be the real threat.

[nick]

On May 31, 1:36 pm, BTR1701 <atro...@mac.com> wrote:
> In article <jq86fv$c2...@dont-email.me>, "Obveeus" <Obve...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > "BTR1701" <atro...@mac.com> wrote:

The first responders, the people sucking in all those carcinogens,
they could be your zombies. And in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln:
Vampire Hunter . . . Rudy Giuliani: Zombie Killer.

[trotsky]

That wasn't a hard connection to make. The stupidity of people on
Usenet never ceases to amaze.

[~consul]

It's 9/11, if we are going to go there, why have the heat activated contagion that was stored in the luggage of the terrorists? Or how the towers were struck down to hide the secret biological testing facility on Floor 80 by a rival company/nation?
--
"... respect, all good works are not done by only good folk. For here, at the end of all things, we shall do what needs to be done."
--till next time, consul -x- <<poetry.dolphins-cove.com>>

[nick]

Going back to Chernobyl Diaries for a second. Every reviewer
mentioned how dumb the kids were and how every decision they made was
the wrong one. You know what? The people in Prometheus were dumber,
and they were trained professionals At least the kids in Chernobyl
Diaries were tourists and tourists are supposed to be stupid and ill-
prepared.