Left Behind

This is bad. Terrible acting, stupid premise... there is no way people can "accidentally wander" anywhere near the exclusion zone. "Kate" is so bloody annoying I was hoping something would happen to her, but I couldn't sit through the crapfest long enough to find out.

The movie had some positives: I like the setting (ie the abandoned Chernobyl city), a few of the scenes are creepy, and the movie is shot in a grainy manner that works well.

The biggest problem, by far, is that characters are not likable. On the contrary, the characters get so annoying because they just keep arguing and bickering with each non stop. By the time I reached the 40-minute mark, I was ready to turn this movie off because the characters were getting under my skin.

This movie is a worse disaster than the actual Chernobyl Meltdown itself!!! Where should I begin, well the fact that these nitwits are in Russia and somehow stumble into Ukraine and manage to then unwittingly stumble into the EXCLUSION ZONE which seems to be almost totally unguarded!!! Then the whole nonsense of having both radiated survivors AND the ghosts of dead radiation victims come after them!?!?!? Give me a frigging break!

The writing is totally amateurish with unbelievable lines delivered by some of the worst actors to ever appear in a movie!!! The plotline seems to portray these idiots as too stupid to put two and two together and realize that an abandoned CITY in Ukraine is the site of the Chernobyl Meltdown Site.....Duh!!!

This is just a poorly executed film from top to bottom. Zero redeeming qualities. Annoying characters and meandering to the thousandth degree.

Question-- Why waste so much time exploring a city you were desperate to leave the night before???

LEFT BEHIND AKA AFTER CHERNOBYL AKA GHOSTS OF CHERNOBYL is a supernatural found footage horror film about a group of young people who inadvertently end up in the Chernobyl area and get terrorized by a supernatural entity. This story is bookended by that of an urban explorer who found the footage of this group and presents it to us.

I had just watched the thematically very similar THE CHERNOBYL DIARIES, and while that movie was a massive disappointment, compared to this, it is a veritable masterwork.

There are problems here on so many levels:

1. Character exposition: the movie does not properly explain how all the members of the group are related to each other. Also, there seems to be a point of conflict regarding the uncle of one of them that is never clarified.

2. Dialogue: it appears the directors went for the improvisation approach. As a result we get the expected banal, aimless dialogue to which is added a ton of shouting and yelling and pointless verbal sparring. It also rendered all group members thoroughly unlikable.

3. Acting: Generally not good, but then all that shouting turned these characters into one-notes, and therefore I could not tell whether the limited range was a problem with mainly with the acting or the dialogue.

I did notice that the actor who played "Tom" was head and shoulders above everyone else. I was then surprised to find out that he was Russian and that he had passed away 2 years before the release of the movie.

4. Story: Okay, so this is Chernobyl with a supernatural twist. It could have worked, but there was still so much unexplained, especially with all the ghosts other than the girl. And why was there a ghost train?? Why on earth did the urbex guy decide to go back after he had just watched the footage? How did the old footage from a generation before get mixed in with this footage?

5. Cinematography: this is the best aspect of this film, but still problematic. The film-makers decided to give fairly long preview flashes every once in a while. Thus, we see the antagonist early on, before the horror even begins, and the chance for a creepy buildup until the reveal is thrown away.

What a pity that neither this nor DIARIES managed to take advantage of the fantastic setting. Maybe the third time will be the charm.