It was mentioned on the radio this morning that today is the 30th anniversary of the nuclear war drama Threads, first broadcast on the BBC on 23 September 1984. I remember seeing it in Australia in 1985.
Do others remember this program? It was chillingly terrifying.
I’ve read the description and that’s enough to tell me I’m not ready to see it. Maybe ever.
The Portishead song by the same name (from Third) is a great one though.
Threads was a truly depressing film, made “The Day After” look happy by comparison, but I think the saddest nuclear war film was the animated film “When the Wind Blows”
I’ve heard “Grave of the Fireflies” was also grim, but I haven’t seen it yet…
Off to YouTube or Netflix…
It’s not available on Netflix. I don’t think it’s even been released in the US, which is a huge shame.
Threads was definitely released on video in the US – that’s where I saw it.
Easily the most chilling depiction of nuclear war since The War Game*, and its legitimate successor. I agree that The Day After, for all its horror, seemed too “cheerful” and optimistic by comparison.
*Peter Watkins’ black and white film made for the BBC in the 1960s, but not aired by them until 20 years later – right before their showing Threads, in fact. Still my all-time selection for most devastating and accurate nuclear war drama.
I happened to find it on VHS in a used bookstore about 15 years ago. I still have it, and have moved it from place to place. I don’t even have a VCR anymore, but I keep this.
Incredibly scary to me, from when I first saw it (on one of the Turner networks?) in the 80s. I’ve never been able to get myself to watch The War Game because Threads freaked me so much.
It can be found on YouTube.
It was so horrifying to watch 30 years ago. Scared the shit outta me, it did. Nothing like seeing it in the midst of the Cold War/Reagan years.
I’ve always said that were I to be in that scenario all I would wish for would be a big ole bottle of Jack Daniels and a ton of painkillers.
I saw it when it was released and my opinion then was that it was left-wing / CND propaganda, part of the battle between Left and Right in the UK that the Right won. My opinion has not changed.
To give some context to that, the director, Mick Jackson, was very anti-Tory, and the writer, Barry Hines, was of similar opinion. Certain elements of the BBC (one of the commissioners of the film) were also rabidly anti-Tory at the time. It was also the time of the Miners’ Strike.
Weird that this movie would come up now, I was just watching a movie called how I live now. Still can’t figure out what the movie was about.
[SPOILER]Someone detonates a nuke in London, I presume, and then Terrorists foul the water supply with something, British Govt reacts, as you would expect.
Nice effects with the nuke, you don’t actually see it happening, but you do see the blast effect, as its finally slowing down, and the fallout is actually grey instead of white, like it should have been in the earlier movies, alough, I think it fell just a bit too early.
Auntie taking off to Switzerland, was just a bit too convienent.[/SPOILER]
Declan
I* think* I saw it when it first aired. Freaked the hell out of me. Though when I bought the DVD recently and rewatched it I don’t remember the mutant baby birth at the end. As I recalled, it ended with the girl discovering her mother had died in the night, rifling her body for anything of value and going out to work in the fields.
Don’t know if maybe I saw a cut version or just blanked the ending.
The ending I remember is pretty much what TPW describes. I can imagine the last few minutes being cut for broadcast in North America.
I saw it here in the US with the baby ending. There may have been something cut. As I recall, the nurse hands the daughter her baby, swaddled up in a blanket, she looks down at it and draws in her breath to, presumably, scream. And that’s the last scene. As I saw it the baby was not shown.
So what would a Tory vision of nuclear war have looked like?
I’ve no idea; I’m not a Tory. Just because I recognised it as left-wing / CND propaganda doesn’t mean I was right-wing at the time.
You could only see it as CND propoganda if you ever thought that a nuclear strike wouldn’t be that bad. Those who advocate nuclear weapons don’t usually claim it won’t be terrible for those affected. That’s the point of the weapons, after all. We will never use them because it will be at least as bad as Threads.
Threads was just a film showing how bad it could be. That does help CND and I am pro-CND. However, if I were pro-nuclear I’d also be in favour of this film, and having this film shown in foreign languages too, because it would show just how fucking powerful our weapon is, and not just in an explosive way.
A broad opportunity for construction contracts.