Chernobyl Diaries - When will American teenagers ever learn?

America has a rich history of sending its youngsters off into remote locations, only for them to end up getting slaughtered one by one by werewolves/vampires/cannibal rednecks and so on.

If modern horror films have taught us nothing else, it's don't go anywhere that doesn't have mobile phone reception.

Therefore, when a group of overly-attractive American teens go on holiday across Europe and end up in Moscow, they can't resist the offer from a local one-man Russian tourist guide of being driven round Chernobyl - the site of a nuclear reactor leak a couple of decades ago which left the neighbouring towns deserted.

Yes, there's no cell phone reception. Yes, their van just so happens to break down once they get inside. And, yes, they ignore the warnings not to go there by the Russian soldiers who tell them there is `Maintenance' going on inside. So they go in. Guess what? They soon wish they hadn't.

I won't spoil the surprise of what awaits them inside, but they soon end up fighting and fleeing for their lives and screaming along the way.

It's not a bad little horror film. The performances are acceptable, but by the time the credits roll you won't really feel much of a connection to any of the characters as they have never really been properly developed and I'll bet you won't be able to remember any of the Americans' names once the film has finished (the possible exception being their tour guide 'Yuri,' but then seemingly every Russian man is called 'Yuri!'). The real star of the film is the location itself. I don't know where it was filmed, but it's bleak, deserted and creepy, which does lend itself to the film's subject material.

The ending has come in for some criticism. And, yes, it did feel a bit `tacked on' to the rest of the film. Maybe there's an alternative ending out there that would suit the mood a little better?  The first two thirds of the movie utilises the location to the maximum and, even if you don't enjoy the film's subject matter, you get a great sense of what a deserted Russian town would look like.  Then, during the final act, it's effectively people running around in the darkness waving torches.  This not only makes it hard to see what's happening, but also who it's happening to.  I kept asking myself, who was that?  And what happened there?

You'll notice I haven't gone into great detail regarding the exact nature of the 'threat' that awaits our hapless heroes.  That's because it's hard to tell as we don't really see them in the first two thirds and then only brief glimpses of them in the final showdown.  We're given a rough idea of what they are at one stage, but you'll never really feel like you 'know' the enemy here.

Overall, okay, but probably not quite as good as it should have been (and I wished it was).

6/10 May just keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights