Gogol. The Beginning

Gogol. The Beginning (2017) is a Russian mystery-horror film from director Egor Baranov that you can watch online on iFILM. Nikolay Gogol, a young clerk in St. Petersburg, is plagued by strange seizures — and in the blackouts he glimpses things hidden from everyone else.

It's 1829. Gogol burns his own manuscripts and barely trusts his gift, until the sharp investigator Yakov Guro realises that the clerk's visions point straight at killers. The two travel to Dikanka, deep in the Poltava countryside, to look into a string of murdered young women. Locals whisper that the crimes are the work of the Black Horseman, a demon ridden out of old folk legend. Waiting there, too, is a love that will turn fatal for Gogol.

Aleksandr Petrov plays the writer as a man on the edge of breakdown, while Oleg Menshikov brings cool irony to Guro. The film loosely braids Gogol's own biography with his Dikanka tales — Cossacks, witches, drowned maidens and a gothic detective plot share the same fog. Shot first as a series, it was cut for cinemas and launched a whole franchise. Best for fans of dark Slavic folklore and horror with real atmosphere. Stream Gogol. The Beginning (2017) online on iFILM.