Crime Thriller ‘Side Effects’ Debuts First-Look Photos and Warns About the ‘Real Killer on the Loose’: Deadly Opioids (EXCLUSIVE)

New thriller – which debuts exclusive first-look images – stars Josephine Park (“The Ox,” “Baby Fever”) as Chief Investigator Nora Søby. Leading Denmark’s top crime unit, she’s forced to investigate when a dockland security guard is murdered and a large shipment of pills containing a lethal opioid goes missing.

“Side Effects” is produced for TV 2 Denmark by Jonas Allen and Peter Bose from Miso Film. Fremantle is handling international sales.

Miso Film, a Fremantle company, is behind Netflix’s “The Rain,” “The Investigation” and “Those Who Kill,” as well as “The Uniform.” Other upcoming projects include “The Cold Song,” “The Traitor Within” and “Royal Blood.”

“Miso Film has killed a lot of people across its productions during the years, and I’m guilty of a few of those murders myself. When we started working on this series, we talked about creating a new serial killer series. But every meeting ended with a desire to do something different and closer to reality,” said Lasse Kyed Rasmussen, the show’s creator and main writer.

“During those meetings, we looked out of the windows of our office in Copenhagen, only to see that, thankfully, there were no serial killers roaming the streets. But, like so many other major cities in Europe, we do have a real killer on the loose in the form of the drugs that claim the lives of many young people every year.”

Now, the classic serial killer is replaced by “deadly opioids that keep spreading and constantly claiming new victims.”

“The idea for the show started when we asked ourselves: what is actually killing people in 2026? The obvious and alarming answer was street drugs,” noted Rasmussen.

During their research, the team talked to the police, read books and listened to podcasts to make sure that every element of the plot had a connection to reality. “But the truth might be even simpler than that,” he added.

“I can’t cross the park next to my apartment without seeing dealers selling drugs or people smoking joints. Drugs are everywhere. And many people know a child, relative or friend who has a connection with drugs. There is never just one victim when a person starts taking drugs.”

Drug abuse affects many people, “both within families and across society.” That became the core of the show.

“This network of side effects and consequences of drug abuse is one of the great tragedies of modern society, but also what makes the story relevant and relatable to a broader audience.”

Jonas Alexander Arnby, who co-wrote the show and directed it, wanted it to really reveal “how criminality enters individual lives, alters relationships, and reshapes people’s futures.”

“Every crime carries a human cost, and we wanted that cost to be felt through the fear, grief, compromises, and irreversible choices left in its wake.”

Their visual approach combined a “contemporary filmmaking style with the immediacy of ’70s-inspired documentary grain and the tension of documentary-like zooms,” he said.

“We filmed the city with intimacy and intensity, placing the viewer alongside the people forced to live with violence and uncertainty. The result is a world where danger is never abstract, and where every personal loss carries emotional weight.”

The team talked about the likes of “Pusher 2,” “Irréversible,” “Succession,” “Mobland,” “Dopesick” and more, but Rasmussen can’t really think of an obvious comparison that feels exactly like “Side Effects.”

“Much of the credit for that goes to Jonas Arnby and his talented team, whose vision has given the show a visual identity all its own,” he noted.

Producer Jonas Allen already worked with Arny on “The Uniform,” shot mainly at the police academy and the outskirts of Copenhagen.

“Arnby and I talked a lot about using Copenhagen as a raw urban backdrop in order to create an authenticity that mirrors the realism of drug dealing without going into traditional gang territory that has been portrayed so often in other series,” he said.

But while the city is one of its stars, Josephine Park shines the brightest as Nora: a flawed mother, a great cop with ambitions and a person with a lot of vices.

“She is also just one of us – a person with a troubled past trying to do her best. The crime genre almost demands a main character with an unhealthy work-life balance. You could also say that Nora works far too much. But we always had a strong ambition to create a character that is both a cop and a mother,” said Rasmussen.

Even though Nora is leading the war on drugs, even she cannot shield her daughter from it.

“That’s not because Nora is a bad mother – or bad at her job. She’s simply the mother of one of the many ordinary young people who give in to temptation and end up with a serious drug problem. Because drugs and their consequences affect everyone.”

He added: “Josephine’s portrayal of Nora brings even more humanity to her, along with a recognizable pain that will hopefully make Nora feel like a complete human being, rather than just another crime investigator.”