Apparently the number of films featuring bad things happening to US citizens in Europe, most recently Liam Neeson's Taken films, are putting off Americans from visiting here. Not that they need much of an excuse not to travel, considering the majority never even leave their own state in their lifetime.

This then, is just another excuse not to leave the good old US of A. But to be fair, the abandoned Russian of Pripyat, is never going to be the most of appealing of tourists attractions.

As part of their tour of Europe, American couple Chris (Jesse McCartney) and Natalie (Olivia Dudley), and Olivia's friend Amanda (Devin Kelley), have reached Kiev, where his brother Paul (Jonathan Sadowski) currently resides.

With the three of them looking forward to going to their next destination of Moscow, Paul suggests that he's heard of another tour that they all might want to take in before moving on.

In 1986 the Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant in Ukraine suffered a major disaster when a sudden power output surge, followed by a spike in power output that caused explosions in reactor number four. The result, a frightening amount of radiation was released into the atmosphere. The nearby city of Pripyat, where many of the workers of Chernobyl lived, was evacuated in minutes. The city has remained a ghost town ever since.

Paul informs his brother and friends that Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko), an extreme tours guide, has told him that he can get them all into this fascinating place. Although Chris objects, he goes with the majority of the group who are keen to go.

Before they know it, they'll all off in Uri's van, with another couple of tourists along for the ride. Although they are initially turned away at a military check point, Uri knows another way in. And that's when all the trouble begins.

And here is view. Impressive, huh? On clear day, you can see power station perfectly.

It's no surprise to learn that Paranormal Activity's Oren Peli wrote and produced this film; it's rich with atmosphere, but sadly short on shocks. Which is a shame because the premise of visiting this real life ghost town (which gamers will recall also features in COD 4: Modern Warfare) is a promising one considering how eerily atmospheric the locale is.

Even the acting isn't too shoddy. But after pouring on the atmosphere, the film is let down by a rarely seen foe. And when they do appear, with the common theme of being bald uniting them, they just don't seem much of a threat. They're not quite zombies, not quite human, making them a totally non-scary proposition. You'll find far scarier characters down your local high street.

And it's only a small thing, but the title refers to a number of diaries that don't feature at all in the film, either in written or video form. Perhaps it was just a typo as it's more likely that dairies feature more heavily.

Director Bradley Parker does pretty well for the most part with his debut, but without any stand-out scary moments, it's nothing to write home about.