My Favourite Stories - Part 10: Chernobyl

It might be a bit grim to say one of my favourite stories is about a real-life nuclear reactor explosion and all the fallout that ensued. But the HBO miniseries about this very event is such a gripping portrayal of how reality can be much more terrifying than fiction.

Horror is not a genre I enjoy all that much. The plots tend to be a bit predictable, the writing feels canned, and the themes don't go deep enough for me. Chernobyl breaks through all these barriers, delivering an absolute gutshot of a horror series.

Many horror stories rely on a level of uncertainty, dread, and helplessness to stoke a fear response in the audience. As effective as they are, normally an audience can take solace in the fact that the monsters they witness are created in the imagination of a storyteller. 

But in this case, Chernobyl presents a monster far more terrifying than anything I’ve seen dreamt up from fantasy or sci-fi: nuclear radiation. A nameless, faceless, creature which cannot be reasoned with or even directly interacted with. It is like an unnatural force of nature, which simply unravels the DNA of anything that gets too close. It is, in essence, a deadly wave of anti-life energy. The concept almost seems too terrifying to be real, and yet it is.

Furthermore, Chernobyl accomplishes more than just bone-chilling horror. It sticks the landing perfectly with the courtroom scene (spoilers!) in the final episode, where Dr. Legasov delivers a powerful message that this was not a freak accident or an unpredictable tragedy. It was the result of a deeply flawed system of misinformation, distrust, and manipulation which is characteristic of the USSR. As he states powerfully, “That is how an RBMK reactor explodes. Lies.”

So for a little cherry on top, it is a story which justifies my hate boner for the Soviet Union.