In the 80s a t.v.movie aired about nuclear war in akansas town.also there were the British film threads.if you watched it did you find it scary to watch?
Not in the least. Lawrence, Kansas needs nuking!
Hell yeah. Scared me and my sibs silly.
I didn’t think too much of it but as a pre-teen, I might have missed some of the impact. As I was living about 90 minutes from Lawrence at the time, it gained a small bit of significance for me.
I don’t dispute this in any way but I’m curious as to your reasons. I have my own reason to bring about the end of Jayhawk basketball via nuclear conflagration but I welcome your thoughts.
As nuclear doomsday movies go, it was below average. Dull, dull, dull.
The only nuclear disaster film to scare me was a compilation of Cold War propaganda films called The Atomic Cafe. “Holy crap! These people were morons! And they had the Bomb? Jesus Christ, it’s a wonder the world survived!” These were my very frightened thoughts while watching it.
It’s Kansas. I would say drop one on Palco, but I may be the only person who knows where that is, or cares. Old family feuds.
My wife was emotionally scarred for life by The Day After as a kid. I remember being slightly concerned for a short while, then I quickly forgot about it. Neither of us have seen threads, but I’d like to.
I thought it was more depressing than scary.
Thanks for sharing, silenus. Yeah, Palco is kind of the middle of nowhere, even by Kansas standards.
In other news, best nuclear war film IMHO: By Dawn’s Early Light.
TDA was nothing compared to Threads or When the Wind Blows
Threads scared the crap out of you with it’s gritty realism
When the Wind Blows simply CRUSHES your SOUL, simply the most depressing, disheartening and gut-wrenching film I’ve ever seen, saw it once in high school and it stuck with me ever since, rewatching it again on YT , it has lost none of it’s impact, it still tears my heart out of my chest, shows it to me, then utterly stomps it into a fine red paste…
“Shall we get into the paper bags again…?”………:(
No, I was already terrified by The War Game*
Threads, a British follow-up, was almost as scary. Both these films depict harsh realities that The Day After shied away from.
*NOT the Matthew Broderick War Games, but the BBC dramatic recreation of atomic war. Much, much scarier than the (by comparison) much tamer American TV movie.
It didn’t scare me but I already had a very, very clear idea of what nuclear devastation would look like and be like to live thru.
ETA: I agree that Threads was much more devastating to watch.
I love this film, and own a copy of it. The brilliant part of it is that it’s simply a compilation of films and TV programs with no voice-over narration, or any dialogue that’s not in the original.
I live in Topeka, a short half hour from Lawrence. I figure I would have been toast, as the first nukes we saw were in KC, and Topeka is between KC and Lawrence. It scared me, but Threads was even worse, That last scene where the girl sees her baby and opens he mouth to scream, and the story ends, shudder.
Would you say it it is more soul crushing than The Road? If so, I need to see it, and then hate myself for doing so.
It shook me, rather than scare.
I never saw The Road, It looked interesting, but I heard it was pretty heavy-handed on the religion side, and I hate glurge, i’ll see if it’s available on any of the Big 3 streaming services…
WTWB is getting harder to find, I haven’t seen a YT copy in a while, and the only DVD I’ve been able to find on Amazon is an unauthorized burn from a pirated source, WTWB needs to be re-released, either streaming or on DVD/Blu-Ray
Threads is just so straightforward - it really looks like a documentary about the end of the world, albeit set in the 80s.
It did scare me as a child and it scared my 1998 born child and her friends too.
When the Wind Blows is animated, so that may change how it affects you. It’s about two elderly British people doing everything they’re told to. There is no outright horror and very little happens. But it’s fairly unusual to watch it and not be upset at least, I’d say.
It’s like the first section of Up, but the world ends.
The Day After, I only saw on YouTube a couple of years ago after it was recommended on here, and the effect was dimmed by having seen Threads as a child, but it was still well done and yeah, pretty scary.
I was very affected by the people turning into skeletons when the bombs went off in The Day After. It scared me for days.
Like others, Threads also terrified me. Especially the ending. It gave me nightmares for a long time.