[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Chernobyl Diaries (2012) Urban Explorers (2011)

Two strikingly similar films with basically the same plot lines. A group of young tourists hire a local guide for an unofficial tour of (a) Pripyat, the town next to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant where all the workers lived and (b) underground tunnels and fortifications under Berlin.

For the first forty five minutes or so Chernobyl Diaries was by far the better film. Like the explorers, i was genuinely interested to see how the Chernobyl area might look since the nuclear disaster back in 1986. The film's characters were on the whole believable, the town of Pripyat a deserted wasteland with it's buildings intact standing rather creepy, with the real life backstory horrifying.

Urban Explorers fared less well during its opening. Whilst still creepy with an unnerving historical back story, the tunnels featured (The film was actually fully shot in Berlin) were, after all, just dark sewer style passageways making them a less interesting visual experience for the viewer.

It's during the second half where roles are reversed. Chernobyl Diaries goes down the secret military experiments route with various mutated creatures and humans, it's characters going from the believable to the absurd, somewhat like The Dyatlov Pass Incident. This outcome has become a little tired and stale so it was more refreshing during Urban Explorers to go down the well worn but slightly less common path of a deranged psycopath inhabiting the tunnels. This time in the guise of a former Berlin border guard. The guard is a genuinely nasty piece of work and proves a more terrifying foe than the nameless hordes in Pripyat with some strong torture and bloody gore.

Whilst not as good as Death Line or Chris Smith's Creep, Urban Explorers is better than most slashers of this ilk and a more rounded piece of work than the fractured, cliched, Chernobyl Diaries.