Halloween the Film Watchening Part 3: (#4) Chernobyl Diaries
Current/post-college adults whose lives are observed via shaky-cam decide that while they're in Europe on vacation, they will visit Pripyat. Shit goes wrong, night falls, shit goes wronger, things happen.
All brought to you by the guy who made 4 Paranormal Activity movies (+1 more on the way!)
So, I have a big problem with the shaky-cam horror movement. For clarity's sake, I'm not talking about people who are using camcorders to make budget indie films for $5. Nor am I really talking about productions that clearly used shaky-cam for the purposes of being able to film on location without having to spend boatloads of cash on setup or blocking streets or some such. Rather, I am talking about the people who use shaky-cam specifically because they believe it grants some kind of faux cinema verité aesthetic to a crappy horror movie that wasn't written with that aesthetic in mind.
I would have thought that a movie with Oren Peli's involvement would have been better about this (to be fair, I only saw the first PA movie), but if the first PA film was a study in using shaky-cam to enhance the sense of wrong-ness by making the footage feel more real, the Chernobyl Diaries is a giant step back as they use shaky-cam for a film that would have been much better had it been filmed more like a high-production value picture (like the re-made Evil Dead, for example).
There is no tension to this film whatsoever, and it's entirely because it takes forever to actually get places. For some reason, the film feels like its trying to live up to its shaky-cam movement origins, because it does that thing that many crappy indie films do where they spend time trying to create character moments in order to make us give a shit about the characters. That's okay in a lot of non-horror films, but this is a fucking horror film - we know people are going to go down, and trying to make us care about them as individuals is a lot harder than shoe-horning in moments and interactions. This is made worse by the fact that the actual overall pacing is atrocious. It take 50 of the film's 80 minutes (if you don't count the credits) for stuff to even start happening.
The shaky-cam also manages to completely destroy the notion that Pripyat itself is really fucking creepy. In a regular horror movie, with establishing shots, and lighting choices, and atmospheric sound and settings and everything, Pripyat should be the really unsettling even in the day-time, and pants-shittingly terrifying at night. But because the shaky-cam spends all its time mostly looking at the characters looking at one another, the effect is completely lost.
It's not until the last 10 minutes of the film when the "real-ness" of shaky-cam begins to pay off as the things begin making their appearances, and by that point I just didn't give a shit.
There are decent examples of shaky-cam horror. The first PA, certainly, V/H/S most definitely, Grave Encounters was okay, The Last Exorcist was surprisingly decent, and REC was an all-time masterpiece of horror that was so good that Quarantine came out looking amazing just by re-making it shot-for-shot. Not too surprisingly, all of those films used shaky-cam for something, whether it be found footage, or just a camcorder perspective as a narrative device. Chernobyl Diaries uses it solely as an affectation, and it kills any possible tension.
Also, there's no actual diaries in this film. Seriously. I know Hollywood has a weird relationship with titling, but come on now...
All brought to you by the guy who made 4 Paranormal Activity movies (+1 more on the way!)
So, I have a big problem with the shaky-cam horror movement. For clarity's sake, I'm not talking about people who are using camcorders to make budget indie films for $5. Nor am I really talking about productions that clearly used shaky-cam for the purposes of being able to film on location without having to spend boatloads of cash on setup or blocking streets or some such. Rather, I am talking about the people who use shaky-cam specifically because they believe it grants some kind of faux cinema verité aesthetic to a crappy horror movie that wasn't written with that aesthetic in mind.
I would have thought that a movie with Oren Peli's involvement would have been better about this (to be fair, I only saw the first PA movie), but if the first PA film was a study in using shaky-cam to enhance the sense of wrong-ness by making the footage feel more real, the Chernobyl Diaries is a giant step back as they use shaky-cam for a film that would have been much better had it been filmed more like a high-production value picture (like the re-made Evil Dead, for example).
There is no tension to this film whatsoever, and it's entirely because it takes forever to actually get places. For some reason, the film feels like its trying to live up to its shaky-cam movement origins, because it does that thing that many crappy indie films do where they spend time trying to create character moments in order to make us give a shit about the characters. That's okay in a lot of non-horror films, but this is a fucking horror film - we know people are going to go down, and trying to make us care about them as individuals is a lot harder than shoe-horning in moments and interactions. This is made worse by the fact that the actual overall pacing is atrocious. It take 50 of the film's 80 minutes (if you don't count the credits) for stuff to even start happening.
The shaky-cam also manages to completely destroy the notion that Pripyat itself is really fucking creepy. In a regular horror movie, with establishing shots, and lighting choices, and atmospheric sound and settings and everything, Pripyat should be the really unsettling even in the day-time, and pants-shittingly terrifying at night. But because the shaky-cam spends all its time mostly looking at the characters looking at one another, the effect is completely lost.
It's not until the last 10 minutes of the film when the "real-ness" of shaky-cam begins to pay off as the things begin making their appearances, and by that point I just didn't give a shit.
There are decent examples of shaky-cam horror. The first PA, certainly, V/H/S most definitely, Grave Encounters was okay, The Last Exorcist was surprisingly decent, and REC was an all-time masterpiece of horror that was so good that Quarantine came out looking amazing just by re-making it shot-for-shot. Not too surprisingly, all of those films used shaky-cam for something, whether it be found footage, or just a camcorder perspective as a narrative device. Chernobyl Diaries uses it solely as an affectation, and it kills any possible tension.
Also, there's no actual diaries in this film. Seriously. I know Hollywood has a weird relationship with titling, but come on now...