I had seen parts of this ages ago, but never the whole thing. Sunday I was in my local used book and video store and ran across a copy (in the children’s movie section, no less) for $2.50. So I picked it up.
Holy cow. I’d seen The Day After (but I haven’t seen that in years), but I don’t think it really compared to this. The buildup and attempt at planning for the survival or people after the attack was what hit me. The scenes that hit me were the ambulances moving people out of hospitals and the fire engines being sent out of town so that they would (theoretically) be available to fight fires.
Wow. One of those that really made me remember the fears of the 80’s - I was born in '73 and can remember laying in bed at night with heat lightning flashing and wondering if it was really a nuclear attack.
Threads was very shocking indeed. Born in '71 I too remember the fear of those days. I had a recurring nightmare about a nuke killing everyone and leaving me alone.
I’ve seen The Day After aswell and it is nowhere near as in your face as Threads.
I still feel icky when I hear the beginning of Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Then the song kicks in and I feel better.
I’ve seen both. For my money The War Game is still the most dramatic and affecting film about a nuclear war. I’ve said so many times on the Board. Threads, however, comes in a close second – and has been more easily available on video. Both of these put The Day After, with its sanitized view of nuclear conflict, FAR in the shade (And I’m a big fan of Nicholas Meyer, and admit that The Day After was still an incredibly sobering and well-made film).
Has anybody seen Testament? Released in 1983, this Jane Alexander film is a very depressing study of the aftereffects of an all out nuclear exchange, set in a town that avoided any initial destruction. There are no mob scenes, no F/X with great cities dying or eating of raw animals, just the bleak vision of a small city slowly dying. Radiation starts to float in, civil support erodes because the rest of the world outside the town has died, and the spirit of civilization just slowly dies along with the children.
JohnT beat me to it. Testament was one of the most gut-ripping films I’ve ever seen about any subject. Mrs. Kunilou was so upset by it she walked out in the middle, and didn’t return.
I’ve seen Testament, too. It concentrated on the aftereffects of nuclear war far from the bomb blasts, and showed the psychological effects, and how, even far from direct devastation, the bomb’s effects ripple out. IIRC, it was made for public TV, but was deemed so powerful it was first released to theaters, which is where I first saw it.
But Peter Watkins’ The War Game still takes first place. It was made on a shoestring budget, so it didn’t have the special effects of Threads or The Day After. It was shot in cinema verite style, with lots of handhelds. What was so disturbing is the REAL appearance of all of this – survivors sitting in groups on curbs, their faces and arms black with what could be blood or charred skin or blood, their bodies rocking back and forth and their stares blank from the shock. That’s the sort of thing that’s missing from the other films. Fires and destruction, and the authorities keeping order in a harsh way, becausde it’s the only way they can. The shots of the police shooting rioters, I’m told, is one thing that kept this film off the BBC (Which originally contracted it) for so many years.
A animated British movie about the cutest little old couple who get ready for WWIII. After the bomb they slowly die. A truly depressing moving movie. I’m nearly crying now thinking of it.
Sorry, yojimbo, not stalking you - just felt I had to chime in and say that Threads ended/ruined my childhood. Sends shivers up my spine thinking about it. Makes the Day After look like Sesame Street.
Seen Threads on TV many years ago, seen Testament on Cable - the scene with the Japanese child sitting happily by his enshrouded father tore my guts out - and read the graphic novel of When the Wind Blows. I’m all set with cinema vérité post-apocalypse fiction, thanks.
I figure there are two reactions to this kind of story - the harder of which is the determination to make damn sure it doesn’t happen. It certainly feels better in the long run.
I remember this movie. I saw it once many years ago. I was probably ten or twelve. It affected me powerfully at the time, although most specific memories of it are gone. The only image that stands out still was a mushroom cloud rising over the city and a shot of urine running down the ankle of a man who witnessed it. I think this film, combined with living less than twenty miles from a major SAC Base in the 80’s contributed greatly to my continuing horror\fascination with nuclear weapons.
Okay, I went to the library and checked out a copy of this film and just finished watching it.
I can’t even really remember how this movie affected me as a child, but I often fell asleep wondering if tonight would be the night the bombs fell. Truly a powerful, visceral movie, and since I’ve read so much now about nuclear weapons and their effects and aftereffects, I was impressed by how plausible it all was. Really, it still is, since the nuclear genie is out of its bottle and can never be put back in, so long as humanity endures. Sure the Cold War is over, but things change, governments come and go, and it seems as if violence and war will be with us until we are no more.
The main thought I have after seeing this movie are in the words of Carl Sagan from his book Cosmos.
