After Chernobyl (I) (2021) User Reviews

Move along folks, nothing to see here...

[tmccull52 · 2/10 · 19 August 2021]

Idiots go on a road trip. Idiots can't read a map and get lost. Idiots get their vehicle stuck. Idiots abandon the vehicle and head off with absolutely no idea where they're going. Idiots argue. Idiots fight. Idiots get drunk while lost in the forest. One member of the group mysteriously goes missing, and no one seems particularly concerned for quite some time.

This is the same basic premise as in about a thousand other horror movies that I've seen. None of the characters get along. None of the characters are even remotely likeable. For people who are supposed to be family, friends, and sweethearts, they bicker and fight almost constantly. Before the movie was a third of the way over, I was practically praying for each character to get picked off and killed.

The actress playing the female lead spends more time hysterically screaming her lines than she does speaking in a normal voice. It's a found footage movie, so there is the requisite, annoying, blurry, poorly lit footage featured in almost every found footage movie ever. We have flashbacks interspersed with current actions in the movie to give us glimpses into the lives of the characters prior to their misadventure. It doesn't help. They're all shrill, shallow cretins.

This is basically an inferior version of "The Chernobyl Diaries". There is nothing new, nothing remotely imaginative. It's the same old tired cliches in yet another disappointing movie. Do yourself a favor; move along, folks; nothing new to see here.

What happened to this place?!

[selfdestructo · 2/10 · 22 May 2022]

Really? 2021 horror, so we've got the prerequisite 4 unlikeable leads who argue and scream at each other for nearly the entire running time. Ghosts of Chernobyl (or After Chernobyl, or Left Behind. Which is it guys?) is done as a literal found footage movie, as in there is a guy in the movie who actually found their camera, talks about it, and brilliantly returns to the site after seeing everyone get killed. He appears as bookends. In reality, this film totally abandons the found footage concept by inserting flashbacks of a ghosts life, complete with notes on location, radiation level, and subtitles. Like, I get the snippets of footage recorded over (one of many, many FF tropes to be found), but the whole affair is done so haphazardly and without logic, that they include things like "scary" shots of the ghost, events that haven't even happened yet, and Kate's ultrasound. What were they thinking?!

So Steve's this Russian guy who wants his "American" (wink, wink) fiance Kate to meet his parents. Along for the ride is his brother (who apparently doesn't speak Russian?), and some other guy who likes to argue. Not only is no time spent with character development, but I thought they did a horrible job just in identifying our stars. Like, who is this 4th guy, and what does he mean... to anyone?

They rent a van, drive through the countryside, get lost, get stuck in the mud (if ever there was a metaphor for this movie), then, wait for it... WANDER INTO THE WOODS AND GET LOST. The Grand Daddy of FF tropes. They wander so far off, they wind up in Chernobyl! Oh, while camping, Steve goes for a swim... and is drowned by a ghost. The remainder of this film is arguing and wandering. Arguing and Wandering... The ghost occasionally pops up to scare them, and they run. There's a reliance on jump scares, but literally nothing happens for long stretches of time. You get a look at Chernobyl, but I'd frankly stick with the Chernobyl Diaries for a slightly better take.

Quiet Please!

[crispdj · 2/10 · 9 December 2021]

I have never wanted everyone in a horror movie, to be killed off after the first 20 mins of watching, just so they would shut the hell up. I actually feel bad for the cast, because now when anyone sees them in anything else, they will be remembered as the completely annoying people from this terrible movie =(

Absolute trash

[jfost75 · 1/10 · 25 March 2022]

Without the benefit of a script or any filmmaking knowledge, I could have grabbed 3 random stranger's and an iPhone and made a better movie.

At its core, this was essentially another "found footage" movie about a group of friends who wander into the woods and run afoul of ghosts. In this case, through a series of bad choices they've wind up in the abandoned city of Pripyat, where they encounter a predictable combination of ghosts and predictable jump scares.

The writers but absolutely no thought into the script and it shows throughout. For example, "Kate" tells her bf she's pregnant and 5 min later she's chugging bourbon... This was bad bad bad...in fact, it would have to get better just to be "bad". I despise this movie and it makes me wish I'd made different choices in life...

Even the titles got it wrong

[halfxbreed23 · 1/10 · 17 December 2021]

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???

How could they fail this bad?

[kbtoys100 · 4/10 · 4 September 2021]

At first glance, Ghosts of Chernobyl (aka After Chernobyl) seems like just another run of the mill found footage movie. But then the end credits roll and they had some behind the scenes footage playing - and low and behold, they actually had a crew on this!

Believe it or not, there was what looked to be 5 crew members plus the cast actually on-site in Pripyat during the day and night to film, which is impressive seeing as there are obviously some heavy restrictions on the Exclusion Zone. They had a full makeup for the ghost and even a steadicam operator.

So how did we get this bland rehash of a movie?

First off, one has to be slightly lenient towards the fact a non-English crew shot an English language film, but that can only go so far. The plot is absurd (no one can accidentally wander into Chernobyl without hiking 10+ miles). We have direct lifts from other FF movies, an annoying cast, and bad CGI.

The scenes filmed at the groups van are so blurry and low rez they look to be filmed on an iPhone 4. However, once the group arrives to the abandoned city, things pick up a bit. Hounded by a mysterious bloody ghost, the group tries to figure out who she is and where they are at.

Seriously, none of them know what Chernobyl is. Sadly though, such a vapid group of young people honestly might not, but when the audience already knows where they are at, it gets annoying really fast hearing them constantly go "why was this town abandoned?".

Which leads to the biggest issue. They filmed in Chernobyl, yet apart from a handful of shots, it could have been filmed in any blown out abandoned building. The nighttime scenes are wasted with such a low light you don't see any scope, and the day scenes are largely shot in generic abandoned spots. I would half suspect they only were allowed one day and night to film at the actual location with the rushed feel of the shots and editing, but then again, the bts footage shows otherwise.

There is a decent concept behind this, but as yet no one has been able to deliver something worthwhile, as Chernobyl Diaries is just as bad as this.

Where are we

[nogodnomasters · 1/10 · 7 October 2021]

Kate (Catherine Badalyan) travels to Russia to met the parents of her fiance Steve (Ivan Ivashkin). She brings along her brother Tom (Vladimir Dykhovichnyy) and Dave (Michael Golodini) who people dislike. The travel by a rented vehicle and get lost at night, ending up in the town of Pripyat, that has fencing and old radiation markings. Occasional on the film the radiation levels of the area are written in micro-rem/hr. These are clearly radiation levels not for the general public but pose no real health hazard to pass through. Things get weird at night. One person drowns and then they all rush to the dead village where things made less sense.

The movie had a 16mm film that was poorly shot mixed in with the frequent run and jerk cam. It was poorly edited with characters that whimpered and fought all the time. Not entertaining. Chernobyl wasn't even in the movie.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

what

[mckinleyballantyne · 1/10 · 2 February 2022]

There is so much to unpack here.

Inconsistent camera quality. Found footage but not really. Why did the girl explode?? Why does nobody know what chernobyl is?

Why didn't we talk about the ghost train????? What did the ghost train have to do with anything?

Also, why were there two scary girls? Blonde girl is not the brunette exploded doll girl?!? And yet???? She is?

How is kate pregnant?? Is it really steve's?? The timing seems off.

How do they come to the conclusion that it was a woman who lost her daughter? Who was the picture of in the political music room? Why was the music room political?

How did they even get lost in the first place?? Who just accidentally ends up in chernobyl?

How did she drown him in the lake? Is she a ghost? Who was being shot in the woods? Who was doing the shooting in the woods? Why were there so many inconsistently dressed woods people?

Why did the little girls scuff radioactive girl's chalk drawing? That's mean. :(

why did semen (the russian dude who found the camera) go into the forest alone after watching the video?? Why is his name semen????

Why did dave leave for like three scenes and nobody noticed? Or cared??

Also, who is dave? Why is here there? I think he is the baby daddy.

Who is steve's brother? Why is he mentioned so often at the beginning and then it doesn't matter to the plot?

Why are there so many video clips from past times in the found footage?? How much footage did he find?? He has kate's personal videos!! Where did semen get kate's ultrasound????? Is semen the killer?hot takes.

Also, to circle back, why is his name semen? What was the thought behind that? I'm curious to hear the creative process.

Left with so many questions.

Bickering does not make characters interesting

[mcarzech · 2/10 · 19 January 2022]

There are a lot of ways in which this movie fails, but I want to point out this one in particular. Conflict between characters can be interesting when there are interesting points of view behind the conflict. This film, on the other hand, doesn't understand the use of conflict: the characters all just hate each other and bicker constantly. The movie tries to tell us these are friends and romantic partners, but what it shows us is a group of people that hate each other's guts, and not in an interesting way. Their bickering never advances the plot; it's usually just about whether they'll keep walking or stop for the night, and there's no difference between these options that we, as audience members, should care about.

Without a particularly interesting premise or compelling characters, this flaw sinks the movie from "nothing of interest" to "actually grating".

Like a not scary, radioactive Blair witch

[tichy_cnp · 1/10 · 22 January 2022]

We're to believe no one in this group of Americans has heard of Chernobyl and that it's possible to just accidentally wander into Pripyat. This movie is like a matryoshka doll of implausibility at the center of which is just bad actors screaming at one another.

Good God it's awful

[sxyfun_chck · 1/10 · 18 April 2022]

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.

Problematic on multiple Levels

[Armin_Nikkhah_Shirazi · 3/10 · 9 July 2023]

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.

Can someone tell them to shut up???

[redban02 · 3/10 · 4 August 2022]

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.

Terrible

[aweber333 · 3/10 · 13 December 2021]

Interesting idea at first, but just pretty awful. A group of people going to Chernobyl, who are surprised that there's no one there, and it looks like a bad nuclear accident happened there, then see ghosts etc. Terrible.

Only good thing about it is seeing Chernobyl scenes

[lydia-75977 · 2/10 · 7 March 2024]

As a "Chernobophile" I rated this garbage 2 stars instead of 1 because they actually filmed in Pripyat, which is always fascinating to see, although I should have watched with the sound off. It boggles the mind how little sense this film makes. After 90 minutes I still didn't quite understand who the characters were or what they were doing together, but that's ok because I didn't care about a single one anyway. Zeno dialogue reflected what actual humans would say in any given situation. The characters seem to exist in an bizarro world in which hiding involves screaming and swearing at each other and the way of escaping a dangerous place is to keep entering the sketchiest of nooks and death traps rather than following a road or attempting to cover ground during daylight. The spooky imagery of Chernobyl (the only worthwhile aspect of the film) is nothing that can't be viewed by executing a simple Google search.

There is nothing good at all about this movie.

[RomeoVonFrankenstein · 1/10 · 10 December 2023]

It's not at all difficult to express why this movie was so terribly bad. Everything about it from the very beginning to the very end was absolutely horrendously awful. The supposed "Americans" spoke with such poorly done American accents that they sounded drunk or on some kind of downers. It was actually pathetic. The actors screamed and yelled more than anything, which was beyond annoying! Truly one of the worst portrayals of Americans I have ever seen performed by foreign actors. There was no story, and the scenes made no sense. Why the characters got themselves into the situations they were in was never explained and it probably couldn't be. This film was obviously just a way to pit down Americans by people who quite simply hate them. The film makers might as well have just made a movie called "Americans are ignorant, drunk, and angry people." It would have been more entertaining than this 1 hour and 24 minute long statement of disgust. What an awful movie. Nothing about it was good.

Plot has potential, but supremely disappointing

[rominamunoz-22296 · 3/10 · 4 July 2023]

So first of, I love the idea of a found footage film, set in Chernobyl. However, they really didn't do much with it. The acting is decent for a group of amateurs, It comes off as somewhat natural. For those reasons I give it a 3/10.

The movie is slow to start off with an explanation for the found footage, which we don't really need. I think it was added to just pad the run time. We come back to this after the conclusion of the found footage.

We then find our group of tourists in Russia, for some reason one brother is Russian and the other is American, without even the smallest hint of an accent. Despite it being "found footage" there are hard cuts to things that happen later in the film, as well as unrelated footage from Chernobyl (which is either stock footage or taken from the HBO series). That's not how cameras work, not to mention it was unnecessary.

The group, along with their Russian tour guide who is also the boyfriend of one of the Americans in the group, eventually get lost driving along the Russian countryside. It leads to them camping out in the forest, trying to find a village to lodge in for the night. I was hoping for like some creepy noises in the forest, unexplained lights, voices being heard. But no, we don't get that. Instead the Russian tour guide drowns while going for a swim in the lake, for no apparent reason. Oh, also, the girl is pregnant, don't worry though it plays no role in the movie at all, I don't even know what the point of it was.

The remaining three stumble into Pripyat, the village that surrounds the Chernobyl site. They apparently don't understand where they are despite being in the most famous Ghost town in Russia, signs that indicate radiation, and actually seeing the Chernobyl plant, the group doesn't understand where they are. Some spooky things happen, mostly just some dumb, cheap jump scares with ONE single "ghost" who keeps reappearing. The timeline doesn't make a lot of sense as it was a girl who was abandoned there 8 years ago, but the disaster happened like, what, 30 years go? That's the least of the issues with this film though. We also get footage of her being experimented on, with no context and spliced into the "found footage". I don't get it and it was really unnecessary.

The high radiation doesn't seem to play at all. I was hoping at some point the characters would maybe get sick, or start to give them visions, but no nothing. This story really could have taken place just about anywhere in the world and it would have made the same amount of sense.

The movie ends with more from the man who found the footage, who despite witnessing 4 people being murdered in the footage he found, goes to Chernobyl to try and find the murderous ghost, equipped with a doll from the grandmother of the "ghost". Then, predictably, the man is murdered by the "ghost."Which would mean, someone found the originally footage, as well as the man who came in after them? It's a mess, which is sad because I think the concept itself in someone creative's hands would be fun.

One of worst films EVER!!!!

[geraldleejones-20639 · 1/10 · 17 March 2024]

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!!!