10 Most Terrifying Moments From HBO's Chernobyl

While the character of Ulana Khomyuk is a fictional amalgamation of all the scientists working for Valery Legasov, all of her research was indeed conducted by real people, and the conditions she was working in make for some of the subtlest terror in the show.

First off, there’s the body horror. We see the various plant workers stricken with radiation poisoning, their skin blistered and sloughing off, their bodies killing themselves slowly from the inside out.

In these scenes, don’t so much feel terror for Ulana as we see the devastation and terror through her eyes. The men are not shown in a gratuitous or especially melodramatic light; instead their suffering is presented coldly, with an almost sterile air.

This style of direction helps us sympathise with the men more than any over the top, gruesome effects ever could do.

Following this, as she starts to piece the disaster together, we see Ulana threaten to expose the truth, only to learn the KGB have been following her every move. This moves us into a very different kind of terror, as we realise the tight grip the Soviet Union has kept on the official story.