Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

Chris, his girlfriend Natalie, and their mutual friend Amanda are vacationing across Europe. They stop in Kyiv, Ukraine, to visit Chris' brother, Paul, before heading to Moscow, Russia, where Chris intends to propose to Natalie.

Paul suggests they go for an extreme tour of Pripyat, an abandoned city located beside the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Chris is against going on the tour to stick to the original plan of going to Moscow, but Paul insists. They meet tour guide Uri, who agrees to take them to Pripyat alongside a backpacking couple, Norwegian Zoe and Australian Michael. After driving through Ukraine, they arrive at a Chernobyl Exclusion Zone checkpoint, where they are refused entry by the Ukrainian military. He then takes them to an alternate entry he discovered years ago.

The group stops at a river where Uri points out a large, mutated fish apparently able to live on land. The group worries about radiation poisoning, but Uri assures their safety with a Geiger counter. Uri leads them to the top floor of an abandoned apartment building, offering a view of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the distance. After hearing noises at the other end of the apartment, the group encounter a bear that runs down the hallway past them without harming them.

As the group prepares to leave Pripyat, Uri discovers the spark plug wires in his van have been sabotaged. He tries to radio for help, but gets no response. As night falls, the group debates on whether to hike to a nearby checkpoint which is 12 miles away, or stay put until morning. Suddenly, strange noises are heard coming from outside in the darkness. Uri curiously ventures out with a loaded gun to investigate, while Chris follows. After multiple gunshots, Paul runs out to rescue Uri and Chris, only to return with an injured Chris, who claims that Uri has been taken. Wild dogs appear and claw at the doors of the van, so they decide to barricade themselves in their locked van for the night, tending to Chris' leg.

The next morning, Paul, Michael, and Amanda leave to search for Uri. They follow a trail of blood to an abandoned cafeteria and find Uri's mutilated body. They take his gun and are chased away by an unknown threat inside the building. Amanda checks her camera, and discovers that one of the pictures shows a humanoid creature present inside one of the apartment buildings. Natalie stays with the wounded Chris while the others begin their hike to the checkpoint. During the hike, Paul, Amanda, Michael, and Zoe find a vacant parking lot, where they gather spare parts for Uri's van, refusing to leave Natalie and Chris behind. The following night, the group return to the van only to find it upside down, and ripped to shreds. They find Natalie's video camera, showing footage of them being attacked, and captured by humanoid mutants. Paul, Amanda, Michael, and Zoe begin searching for the two deeper in the city, encountering a horde of mutants.

During their escape, a traumatized Natalie is found. When the group gets distracted by a mysterious young girl from the shadows, Natalie is dragged away. While fleeing through an underground passage way, Michael falls behind and is captured. As they continue on, they find Chris' engagement ring for Natalie on the ground, with Chris nowhere to be found. Climbing up a ladder, the mutants ambush and drag Zoe back down, forcing Amanda and Paul to leave her behind. The survivors then emerge from the passage next to the exposed nuclear reactor core. Paul recognizes that extremely high radiation levels are causing their skin to blister. Amanda and Paul encounter Ukrainian military forces outside the reactor building. Blinded by radiation, Paul stumbles toward the soldiers, who shoot him down for disobeying their direct order.

Amanda loses consciousness, and awakens on a gurney. Several doctors, in protective hazmat suits, inform her that she is in a hospital and they will help her. The doctors reveal that the "creatures" encountered in the exclusion zone were escaped asylum patients. After realizing Amanda "knows too much," she is forced into a dark cell to prevent her from exposing the story to the world. The recaptured patients swarm Amanda to eat her alive, as the doctor shuts the door viewer.