Chernobyl Diaries movie review

Chernobyl Diaries is a horror movie that came out in 2012. The movie is about 3 American tourists, that came to Russia to visit one of them's brother. The brother who lives in Russia decided to treat his brother and friends to some Extreme Tourism. He contacts this tour guide name Yuri to take them to Pripyat which is the city closest to the Chernobyl Reactor where the families and the employees of the power plant lived. They are joined by a young Scandanavian couple that also joins Yuri's tour. They are turned away from Pripyat by military men, so Yuri takes them by a secret back way into the city. After spending a couple hours of seeing the city, and almost getting mauled by a bear they return to the van to leave. However something has destroyed the wires on the distributor cap of the van, and they are stranded in the van. This is where the action starts piking up as they find out that they might not be alone in this empty city after all. Who will make it out and what will be left of them in this intense horror movie? This movie has an intriguing premise, however looks like it was filmed on a $1000 budget, there really are very few special effects to speak of, and what are there are mostly practical effects. There also really is not character development at all, they are pretty much generic stereotypes and not really original. The movie looks like it was done on a very minimum budget, and the suspense and the big reveal at the end are again unoriginal and disappointing. There is no character development other than the brief introduction to the characters in the opening of the movie and we really learn nothing about the Scandinavian couple or about Yuri for that matter. You feel really little connection to these characters, and their deaths seem unimportant since they don't mean anything to you. This movie does some things right though, for example it was shot on location at Pripyat, Hungary, and Serbia (so it seems the movie's entire budget went to filming locations). Also the movie does have some good scares, and atmospheric horror. But really it can only be seen one or two times, and then just comes across more boring than exciting. Would I recommend this movie? Probably not, I think most people could do without it honestly. It isn't a bad movie, but it also isn't that good ether. I did enjoy it my first time, and on the two subsequent viewings of it, it just hasn't really held any magic or connection to it. But if you are looking for a movie about generic foreigners lost in a Russian town that they chose to go to illegally, then go for it, put it in, and have fun.