“Scaring a Different Way”: Drama, Documentary and Horror Hybridity in Chernobyl (2019)
Whittall, Abigail (2026) “Scaring a Different Way”: Drama, Documentary and Horror Hybridity in Chernobyl (2019). In: Atomic Horror: Fears of Nuclear Technology in Gothic Literature, Film and Media. Palgrave Macmillan. (In Press)
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The 2019 limited series Chernobyl, a Sky original drama co-produced with HBO, received widespread acclaim for its moving dramatization of the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Though primarily considered a ‘drama’, this chapter argues that it is important to consider Chernobyl in connection to other genres, modes and forms. As a popular series Chernobyl has begun to receive some scholarly attention, including being linked to the Gothic and horror by those such as Martin Butler and Michael Fuchs (2025) and Louis Bayman (2019), which this research builds upon by analysing how the creators and audiences have connected Chernobyl to different genres and modes. By touching upon critic reviews before considering the perspective of the series’ makers in more detail, including interviews with creator and writer Craig Mazin as well as director Johan Renck, it is possible to examine the tensions which emerge between the docudrama and horror. Due to the series re-enacting a true event with the purpose of unsettling and disturbing its viewers, there immediately emerges a potential tension between realism and sensationalism, accuracy and exploitation, empathy and disgust. Further complicating the generic makeup of Chernobyl is arguably its place as ‘quality’ or ‘prestige television’, much debated but widely used categorisations which connect to both creator and audience expectations about the series’ formal and thematic properties. In order to explore the series’ generic and industrial context, this chapter considers a range of extratextual materials intertwined with analysis of the text’s visual, aural and narrative techniques. I argue that this approach to Chernobyl allows us to better understand this significant text’s affect, as well as the fraught status of any docudrama taking on the horrifying subject matter of nuclear disaster.
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