Fear of the Neva (Seasons 1–2)

Leningrad, 1967. Night after night, women turn up dead along the Obvodny Canal, each body marked with a symbol drawn in charcoal. Fear of the Neva (Страх над Невой, 2024) is a Russian detective series you can watch online on iFILM.

The case lands on two men who don't fit together. KGB major Chubin has chased ritual killings before — years ago he tried to crack a religious cult, the operation fell apart, and he barely walked away; now he fears the dark and carries the weight of a death he caused. His new partner is police captain Fedorov, a former beat cop quietly in love with his best friend's wife. The pressure is brutal: their superiors want results, the chalk symbols start forming a pattern, and the killer has no intention of stopping. To get ahead of him, they have to think the way he does — before the next woman is found.

Directed by Ilya Maximov and led by Anton Khabarov and Andrey Frolov, with Viktoria Zabolotnaya and Jan Ilves, this is no cozy period whodunit. The Soviet setting feeds the dread instead of the nostalgia, and the whole thing rides on two investigators whose private fears run deeper than the case. Stream Fear of the Neva (2024) online on iFILM.