Bradley Parker
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Filmography
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Scenes involving a very big something (we'll keep it on the down-low) barreling through an empty apartment building, another involving a pack of wild dogs and a rickety bridge, a run-in with a child-sized figure standing motionless in the moonlight, and a cat-and-mouse game in a kitchen reminding of the velociraptor sequence in 1993's "Jurassic Park" are just a few memorable set-pieces of many.
Bearing an uncomfortable resemblance to Craven’s 1977 shocker, “The Hills Have Eyes” (which spawned a marvelous 2006 remake from Alexandre Aja), the creators of “Chernobyl Diaries” have a lot of explaining to do.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Directed by Daniel Myrick
influenced Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
Visuals Themes
Shot for $15,000, it's gone on to be one of the most profitable movies of all time, alongside its found-footage inspiration, The Blair Witch Project .
Though Diaries mostly abandons the vid-cam aesthetic of the Paranormal franchise, in all other ways, it’s The Hills Have Eyes meets The Blair Witch Project , a flashlight tour through a stupid urban legend, with the unseemly authenticity only real devastation can provide.
If you are a fan of "Paranormal Activity" reality-type horror stories, the ones pioneered by "The Blair Witch Project," you might like 2012's "Chernobyl Diaries."
The movie starts off okay, shades of Eli Roth’s Hostel , as freewheeling 20ish travellers Natalie and Amanda (Olivia Dudley and Devin Kelley) are seen gallivanting at all the tourist stops in Europe with Natalie¹s boyfriend, Chris (pop star Jesse McCartney).
"Chernobyl Diaries" is nothing but another take on the endangered American tourists subgenre of such films as "Turistas" and "Hostel."
With elements of “Hostel,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” and “Night of the Living Dead,” “Chernobyl Diaries” certainly gets points for wacked-out originality.
We’ve been on similar tours: “Turistas” tossed young people to their deaths in Brazil; “Hostel” tortured them in Slovakia.
They're entitled and rude at times, sure, but there's not the sense of panicked paranoia that fed the likes of Hostel and Turistas, that feeling that everyone in the rest of the world secretly does want to kill us.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Directed by George A. Romero
influenced Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
Themes
With elements of “Hostel,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” and “Night of the Living Dead,” “Chernobyl Diaries” certainly gets points for wacked-out originality.
Directed by Bradley Parker, who worked as a visual effects supervisor on Let Me In, Chernobyl Diaries is produced and based on a story by Oren Peli, the creator of the Paranormal Activity franchise and ABC series The River.
Bradley Parker, a special effects supervisor on films such as 2010's " Let Me In ," makes his taut directorial debut under the tutelage of one Mr. Oren Peli, the creator of 2009's " Paranormal Activity " who produces and, along with Carey Van Dyke & Shane Van Dyke, writes here.
That gets in the way of even the few relatively successful suspense sequences orchestrated by director Bradley Parker (a visual effects pro with credits including "Let Me In" and "Fight Club").
The result is akin to pretty much any horror flick (or a group version of "I Am Legend") where young people enter spooky places and are picked off one by one.
Best described as “I Am Legend” meets “Paranormal Activity,” “Chernobyl Diaries” is a pretty slick little film.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Directed by Tobe Hooper
influenced Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
Themes
Horror films are often the first to comment on the mass-scale traumas of the real world, but those traumas are usually sublimated in metaphor, like George Romero’s zombies or the killing floor in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre .
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015)
Directed by Gregory Plotkin
influenced by Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
It’s Christmastime, and married couple Ryan (Chris J. Murray) and Emily (Brit Shaw) and their young daughter Leila (Ivy George) have welcomed holiday guests Mike (Dan Gill, wearing a mustache that makes him a dead ringer for “Brady Bunch”-era Robert Reed) and New Age-y yoga instructor Skyler (Olivia Taylor Dudley, “Chernobyl Diaries”).
Bearing an uncomfortable resemblance to Craven’s 1977 shocker, “The Hills Have Eyes” (which spawned a marvelous 2006 remake from Alexandre Aja), the creators of “Chernobyl Diaries” have a lot of explaining to do.
Even lazy horror fans will notice similarities in style and/or story to The Hills Have Eyes , The Blair Witch Project , and The Ruins .
(Turistas and The Ruins are two other examples.)
Aside from some over-the-top and unrealistic gore, Chernobyl Diaries benefits from being beautifully shot by Danish cinematographer Morten Soborg ( Oscar winner In a Better World and After the Wedding) who makes the most of the ghostly surroundings, with Belgrade and Budapest locations standing in for Ukraine.
This desolate setting might have made for a portentous, atmospheric mood-setter, but is shot so indistinctly that it only serves to make a person long for 2012's underappreciated " Chernobyl Diaries ."
The story even pays a visit to Chernobyl, where the McClane boys take a bath in radioactive water, make bonding cracks about John's (ergo, Bruce's) baldness and bump into the tourists from last year's horror flick Chernobyl Diaries.
That gets in the way of even the few relatively successful suspense sequences orchestrated by director Bradley Parker (a visual effects pro with credits including "Let Me In" and "Fight Club").
Oren Peli, the creator of Paranormal Activity , co-wrote and co-produced this high-concept horror movie, but he forgot to write reasonable characters or situations after the concept.
The big shocker in Chernobyl Diaries, the horror thriller from Paranormal Activity franchise creator Oren Peli, is that it’s better than expected.
Review in A Hurry: Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli puts down the shaky cam and heads to the Ukraine.
As a scared-shitless fan of the Paranormal Activity films, I had high hopes for Chernobyl Diaries , which is based on a story by PA creator Oren Peli.
Oren Peli, the guy behind “Paranormal Activity,” had a writing hand in “Chernobyl Diaries.”
Unfortunately (and no surprise to anyone passingly familiar with producer Oren Peli's other properties, including the Paranormal Activity series), there are other things besides birds and three-eyed fish near them thar cooling towers.
As the group delves deeper into Pripyat’s depths to dodge death, it suggests “The Descent.”
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011)
Directed by Mike Mitchell
influenced Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
Of them, recording artist Jesse McCartney (2011's " Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked ") is the best-known and most charismatic.
The story by Peli plays out like an Eastern European Silent Hill (they even find a trusty map!) effectively revealing just enough.
Perhaps we should have expected nothing more from the script's original writing duo of Shane and Carey Van Dyke, whose past C-movie efforts (Titanic II, Street Racer, Chernobyl Diaries) are the stuff of bargain bin purchase remorse and cheesy amateur YouTube reviews.
Soon, director Brad Parker pulls us out of the handheld nausea and moves into a modern cinéma vérité style, similar to how “District 9” made the transition.