![Sinister presences … Chernobyl Diaries.](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2012/6/20/1340210195387/S-i-n-i-s-t-e-r---p-r-e-s-004.jpg)
Oren Peli, creator of Paranormal Activity, has produced this chiller about Americans abroad: it has a hint of Eli Roth's Hostel and indeed Jeff Schaffer's comedy EuroTrip. Some American college backpackers chance across an ex-army guy in Ukraine who is running "extreme tours": he will smuggle them into Prypiat, the eerie ghost town in the shadow of the Chernobyl power plant. There is some very good and creepy docu-realist location work when everyone first shows up there (it was in fact shot in Hungary and Serbia), and they start to suspect that the town may not be entirely deserted. But as sinister presences emerge from the shadows, it gets dull. There is a scary and surreal appearance by a bear.
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