Threads

Talk about bleak. To be fair, I don't know what I expected. 'Threads (1984)' is a notoriously traumatising TV-movie first aired on BBC and subsequently only shown four times on UK television. It depicts the build-up to and aftermath of a nuclear war, specifically focusing on the experience of those in Sheffield after two warheads hit close by. Eschewing most traditional narrative devices except those that get us instantly invested in the lives of a few key characters, the feature puts its entire focus on depicting its subject with as much chilling realism as possible. Playing out essentially as an educational - or, rather, cautionary - experience that warns what could happen if the Cold War were to reach the worse of its two possible outcomes, the flick mixes traditional filmmaking techniques with documentary methods such as on-screen text and omniscient narration. Only the latter stands out as an odd addition, as the affair doesn't really take on the aesthetic of a (deadly serious) mockumentary in any other area aside from the occasional commentary played over key moments. This narration isn't quite in the present tense, and it serves more to remind us that this is speculative than it does to further immerse us in the otherwise brutally naturalistic vibe of the overall affair. Still, it doesn't dampen the cruel believability of the picture, which is incredibly effective at being a very bad time for its entire duration. It's genuinely alarming, a true horror picture that's no less relevant today than it was at the time of its release. The fact that it takes place in my home city, focusing on locations I actually recognise, makes it all the more terrifying to me personally. I mean, I'd much rather have The Full Monty (1997) be our legacy - or, indeed, future - than anything like this. As the film gets further into its story, it starts to lose the urgency and specificity that makes its midsection so utterly compelling and equally as distressing. It begins to jump further and further into the future, putting distance between us and the blast that basically acts as its inciting incident, and it feels less pressing, less recognisable and less real with each new leap in time. At its best, though, it glues you to your seat and subjects you to more horror than most horror movies ever dream of doing, never once feeling sensationalised or exaggerated. If everyone on the planet saw this, I'd like to think that global nuclear disarmament would be within reach. Unfortunately, though, the ghouls with the power to press their little red buttons would likely look at this and say "I've got a bunker, so I'll be fine" and flippantly doom us all to hell just for the fun of it. The knowledge that something like that could happen at any moment is truly, utterly, existentially dreadful, a weight that threatens to collapse us if we don't offset it by living with love and kindness and hope. Whether or not the feature will make people anti-war simply by scaring them to death is up for debate, especially since the people it needs to reach will likely remain out of its grasp both literally and emotionally, but there's value in trying to show people the visceral reality of a future that's always scarily close to coming to pass because it humanises these inhuman things in a way that makes them easier to comprehend than looking at numbers on a screen. In any case, this is an effectively dire movie that has no qualms with totally ruining your day. I understand why a lot of people are utterly overwhelmed by it, but I can't quite see how some of those same people rate it negatively because of it. After all, that's its entire point. It successfully achieves what it sets out to, and its anti-war ambitions are admirable, even if the effectiveness - or, I suppose, ethicality - of the way it delivers that message is up for debate. It's a brutal affair that I wouldn't rush to see again, but would definitely recommend to those who haven't (as long as they're prepared for it). It's especially impressive considering it's a TV-movie shot in less than a month on a budget of around £250,000. It's more immersive - and affecting - than many movies with ten times that budget.

I never want to see this film ever again. It's not that it was bad, just the opposite, it was too effective. Being the British version of The Day After this was the better of the two films. What it lacks in scale, stars, and special effects, it makes up for in the most nightmarish images I've seen outside of a horror film. It actually benefits from having a cast that is unknown-at least here in America ,and it grounds the film in a reality that gets increasingly unbearable as the film progresses. It's focus is more on the breakdown of services once the nuclear attacks happen and whatever plans the government had to confront such an event falls apart quickly. I had to watch the film in increments of about thirty minutes or so and at times I seriously doubted that I wanted to finish it. It is truly terrifying. It's not a Mad Max post apocalyptic scenario but a culture hurled back into a primitive form of living as the effects of the radiation and the nuclear winter makes any attempts to harvest crops impossible. It days for these images to finally fade from my mind and I have absolutely no desire to revisit them.

I didn't know anything about this movie before hand just thought the cover looked really cool with the bandaged cop. I was expecting a cop or soldier gone crazy typa movie .So I sit and watch this movie about a loving british couple and their families. Its kinda enjoyable but in the background there is a war brewing and the longer the film goes the more unsettling it becomes until KABOOM WW3 and Total Nuclear war. That's when this movie just becomes pure Nightmare Fuel .It's like a horrific car crash that you just can't look away from. For a movie made in 1984 it has aged really well in the nowties (2022) when Russia has invaded Ukraine and is threatening everyone with nuke missiles this movie is really hitting close to home. Everyone on Earth should see this movie Slava Ukraine.

Powerful, moving and tragic. This is very difficult to watch. There is this sense of doom as world events clash. This film not only shows the human cost of catastrophic nuclear attacks but also touches on rebuilding afterwards. This goes into far more detail than any similar film. There is a greater fear coming about from this kind of film than any conventional horror film. It didn't make you jump but it made you sit up and take notice. This is a very effective chiller. Probably the scariest of its type that I have seen. I didn't get how the title fitted in until the end. The factual commentary is important although still slightly annoying. I didn't sleep very well after viewing.

This is easily the best TV movie I've ever seen, and honestly, it might just be one of the best movies full stop I've ever seen. It's hard to imagine the premise of a country falling apart after a nuclear attack being executed more effectively than this. The reduced budget works to the film's favour, as many of the settings look very real, the acting is naturalistic, and the blend of stock footage with limited special effects is far more convincing and genuine-feeling than high budget 80s, 90s, or even 2000s effects could produce. There's nothing Hollywood, here. There's a sense of unflinching brutality and honesty that makes the already terrifying premise that much more devastating. You might think the film's age and TV movie nature would make the disturbing content more manageable and less real, but that doesn't happen at all. The acting is almost 100% raw and believable. The effects never look cheesy. The violence and horrific imagery isn't at all toned down. It's remarkable and horrifying in equal measure. Threads is without a doubt one of the bleakest and most distressing films I've ever seen, but two hours flew past, and I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. There was no part of me that wanted to scroll through Facebook or multitask with some household chores while watching this. I was glued to the screen. The most effective moment is when the sound goes out for a moment or two during the sequence where the bombs are being dropped. Also worth noting is that shot with the lady staring into the camera, which will haunt me, and the manner in which the last half hour or so is done with almost no dialogue, and for good reason. It's mesmerising. The voiceover and documentary-ish presentation could make this cheesy, but they don't. It adds to the believability, and such techniques weren't overused at all. Nuclear weapons don't discriminate against their victims in the same way this movie doesn't discriminate against its characters. You could be rich, poor, a child, or even a cute household pet- it doesn't matter. This movie isn't afraid to show the deaths of anyone, and even more chilling is the way some main characters just disappear after the bombs fall, with the audience being left almost certain that whatever happened, their fates were not positive. I can't say enough good things about this, and I am shocked by just how effective it was. A must watch, although be prepared to feel pretty rotten afterwards...

Threads looked at the hopelessness and outright nightmarishness of The Day After and said, "Hold my warm beer." Sure, it has the big picture story of the nuclear war between the U. S. and the U. S. S. R., but it's really about the little people of Sheffield as they deal with the riots leading up to the war and then the cold reality of two-thirds of all British homes being destroyed the deaths of 30 million people as nuclear war comes to England. Unlike the 1950's duck and cover films, this movie pulls no punches when it comes to what happens next after the bombs fall. Food can barely be grown, people die at a young age from radiation-related diseases, nuclear winter sets in and mankind slides back to the dark ages. Writer Barry Hines told the website Off the Telly, "Our intention in making Threads was to step aside from the politics and - I hope convincingly - show the actual effects on either side should our best endeavours to prevent nuclear war fail." Made under the name Beyond Armageddon, it's amazing that this even got on the air in England. A previous film, a mock documentary entitled The War Game, was so upsetting to BBC execs that it didn't air for decades, as they were convinced that it was so upsetting that people would commit suicide after watching it. It aired on July 31, 1985, the fortieth anniversary week of the bombing of Hiroshima, right after a repeat of Threads. This is absolutely the roughest movie about nuclear war that I've ever seen. There is no hope whatsoever and as we've seen over the last year, the governments and services of the world are ill-equipped to even survive when the worst happens. It aired in the U. S. on TBS, as Ted Turner thought that it was an important movie that Americans needed to see. When he couldn't find a sponsor for it, he paid for its airing out of his own pocket. You know what screws me up? This brutal and uncompromising movie was directed by Mick Jackson, who went on to make The Bodyguard and the Dana Carvey movie Clean Slate. This was also shot in the same abandoned hospital as Cabaret Voltaire's video for "Sensoria."

In Sheffield, ordinary people from the working class live their lives while the television news report the escalation of the tension between United States of America and Soviet Union after the invasion of Iran by the soviets. People in general do not pay much attention until the day they realize that a nuclear attack may happen and affect the mankind. "Threads" is a realistic film still impressive in 2021. In 1984 it was scarier with the Cold War, but in the present days it is still frightening since unstable Powers that Be may press the feared button. The effects of the nuclear holocaust in the population of Sheffield is dreadful. My vote is eight. Title (Brazil): "Catástrofe Nuclear" ("Nuclear Catastrophe")

The 80's were a different time. Everybody was making money, everybody was having a great time, things never looked better. Except there was always the threat of nuclear war hanging above our heads. This was more than just an idea. We felt it. It was always there just at the edges of your awareness and you could never really ignore it. Enter "The Day After" which was an American made for TV movie showing what would happen. It was scary and it was effective but it showed an undercurrent of hope. That even in such a tragedy we could survive, pull together and win. Threads has no such message. It shows that even in a limited strike we are well and truly boned. No hope. No chance of a better world. The lucky ones would be the ones that died in the initial blast or that died shortly afterwards. The unlucky ones are the ones that would go on living and slowly get sick before dying. This movie gave a detailed version of what would happen. From the initial blast to the radiation sickness to the lack of any kind of support or infrastructure afterwards. The worst part showing the long term effects of it. The birth defects, the lack of medicine and aid, the fact that suddenly food and clean water, things we take for granted becoming the most precious resources around. This movie is a punch to the gut followed by a slow but deliberate beating until you are left spent on the ground quivering in fear. This needs to be required viewing by anybody in the East or West that might even consider that a nuclear strike is a good idea. It's not. It would literally mean the end of life as we know it.

There's not really a lot of insight you can offer into this infamous TV movie that depicts the aftermath of a nuclear attack on a British city. It's a superficial film, made without subtext, purely designed to present a 'what if?' scenario and then play it out to its ultimate, nihilistic climax. I found it to be utterly grim and depressing, a warning shout against the ultimate in evil: the nuclear bomb. The film is low budget and cast with unfamiliar actors who play normal people, without any kind of fancy acting. It's just as if they're playing themselves. The first half sets up the inevitable and the second half shows what happens to the various survivors. The special effects are absolutely EXCELLENT; this must have been made on a relatively low budget, and yet the nuclear attack is utterly convincing. I really appreciate the way the barren, devastated landscape is brought to life, full of ruined buildings and mutilated corpses. Events that play out are realistic in the extreme; be warned there's no happy ending in sight here, just a ruthless devotion to showing 'what is'. I found it completely upsetting and affecting, full of images (melting bodies and milk bottles) that will stay in my mind for a long time to come. Imagine the nuclear bomb nightmare in TERMINATOR 2 increased to filmic length: that's THREADS in a nutshell.

My boyfriend had been dogging me for months to watch this movie, which he (erroneously, I think) described as sci-fi. Now, I've never been a fan of sci-fi movies, as I think most of them are over-done, corny, etc. Add to that the fact that the movie was made 23 years ago, and I pretty much decided it wasn't going to be my cup of celluloid tea. Was I ever wrong. Not only was it the singular most horrifying movie I've ever watched, it's timely as hell, and it's done documentary-style, so there aren't any overblown emotional scenes to detract from its realism. This movie scared me on such a profound level that I actually felt like I was having a panic attack and had to shut it off halfway through, during the "hospital" scene. Mind you, I've never in my entire life been so disturbed by a movie that I just couldn't watch anymore. I sobbed, hard, for a good 15 minutes and couldn't sleep for most of that night. I have yet to finish the second half. That said, I can't recommend it to the faint-of-heart. It will hit you on such a visceral level that everything in your reality will seem a little duller and less important after having watched it. I'm still amazed at how the events outlined in this movie are as much a threat to us now as they were in 1984. Twenty-three years later, we are no further from preventing a nuclear holocaust. If anything, the threat is more imminent. If you can stomach it, you won't regret it.

Put simply, THREADS takes every disaster movie you've ever seen - even the huge budget offerings from Hollywood - and unceremoniously skewers them on a rusty skewer. Very few films have the ability to suck the life out of a viewer and leave them feeling drained and shaken in quite the same way that this does. The world may have moved on since 1984, but the central message of THREADS - that politicians have the power to pretty much destroy the whole world and wipe out life as we know it in a matter of minutes - remains horribly relevant. So, if you're looking for shocks and jolts, where to start? Burning cats, dead kids, dogs buried in rubble, incinerated babies, mutants, synchronised vomiting, hospital floors awash with excrement, blood and urine, point-blank shootings, stillbirths, characters we've come to know and care about starving to death or slowly dying before our eyes, extreme incompetence on the part of government-appointed officials, radioactive sheep...the list is endless. If you find the scene where the bomb is dropped on Sheffield city centre on a bustling weekday morning upsetting, then I strongly advise you to switch off, because the rest of the film is unremittingly bleak, nauseating and devoid of hope. It will give you nightmares for weeks. THREADS is not a film to be watched, it's a film to be endured, and if you feel you don't have the stomach for it, go with your first instinct and give it a very wide berth. It makes the so-called 'video nasties' look like a frivolous waste of time.

Words can't describe how this movie affected me in 1985, but I'll try. I happened upon a presentation of "Threads" when I was about 11 years old. As a Navy family, we were stationed in Washington D.C. After viewing it, I was frightened to the point of vomiting. I had nightmares for weeks. The world was a very unstable place at the time with a Soviet government that seemed to change monthly. The cast does an admirable job here. Dialog is kept to a damaging minimum. There is no soundtrack other than screams of misery and explosions. Very effective. While you can't compare a TV production, there is effective use of stock footage. The interspersed scientific facts regarding the aftermath punctuate the film brilliantly. While other films about the same topic, like "The Day After" and Testament", were reasonably effective in their messages, I think they failed where "Threads" succeeded. In the aforementioned films, there's a glimmer of hope. In "Threads" there is no hope, only death, misery and dread. I believe I saw "Threads" before the TV broadcast of "The Day After" because my reaction was one of slight indifference. After seeing Mick Jackson's and Barry Hines' work, "The Day After" is like a day at Disneyland. No film portrays the world on the brink and over the edge as effectively. Highly recommended.

Having just purchased this on DVD I was eager to watch it after waiting years to see it after it was unofficially banned from ever being shown on the BBC again. I was four when it was first shown and my parents switched it off, too frightened to watch it themselves never mind let me see it. I have to say it is absolutely terrifying and utterly terrifying in the extreme. This could have actually happened! I was impressed by the way the film conveyed what it would be like if thousands of megatons of atomic bomb was dropped on the U.K. Normal life comes to an abrupt stop. One minute people are shopping in their local supermarket, going to the pub and wallpapering their new flat and suddenly they are plunged into Hell. Civilisation is blown back into the stone age. The most scary part was the way the authorities were shown unable to cope with the scale of the attack (perhaps why the BBC never aired it again). We always think that it could never be that bad because someone would come to our rescue, someone would maintain control. But no, the bombs / missiles keep raining down and down prompting one traumatised emergency committee member to scream, "not another one!" They just did not expect so devastation and are completely helpless. Later soldiers shoot people for food, people wish for death and the emergency committee, those meant to be running things, die in the supposed protective bunker, trapped by rubble. Ten years later, nothing is back to normal. What young people there are behave like wild animals, raping and fighting and speaking in a bizarre caveman manner. Since the Cold War ended people have stopped being frightened of nuclear weapons. Everybody in every country should watch this film and realise that if there ever was a nuclear war, still possible with growing tensions between a superpower and its rivals, those left alive would wish they had been caught in the blasts and killed outright. I don't recommend this for sensitive viewers.

The first and only time I saw Threads was when it aired on PBS in 1985 or 1986, at 15 or 16 years old. It came near the end of my childhood obsession with world war III, in which I terrified myself to sleep many nights worrying about it. Like no other movie Threads has, in the last 20 years, popped back in my thoughts on occasion. I remember many scenes vividly, and through the magic of IMDb, I've learned that some things that I thought I saw, but couldn't believe, actually did occur in the film. (I'm referring specifically to the "ET" scene that was mentioned in the message boards.) Having grown up in the strategic target city of Chicago, I thought: Okay, this is what I could expect if it does happen. I kept me awake into my 20's, when the cold war ended, and the threat was minimized. There truly is no more frightening a movie ever made.

I've always said that no film can really scare you as an adult as films scared you when you were a kid. My benchmark for that being watching 'The Omen' on video when i was about 13, nothing has ever quite lived up to it in the effect it had on me. Rewatching 'Threads' a while back makes me change my mind. I remember first seeing it in Ireland on the BBC when I guess i was about 14. Even in Ireland, a neutral country, anxiety about nuclear war was a big thing when we were kids in the 80's. 'Threads' does really get to you, its very unsettling and disturbing. Unlike fictional horror films, 'Threads' is hugely different in one respect - it's real. This is what would happen, you can't distance yourself by saying it's make believe. There are still thousands of nuclear weapons armed and primed to be launched within minutes, 24 hours a day, everyday. Now we even have a country, the US, that says it's ready to use them, even if no one else does first. Rewatching it, the dated production values don't detract from the film's power. It seems to bring the film even closer to the ordinary and the everyday. It's the film's ordinariness that makes it so viscerally disturbing - Hollywood special effects would at least have allowed you to distance yourself from it somewhat. In fact the film is more realistic for not having them. Someone else mentioned the scene of the woman in the shopping centre urinating where she stood out of pure terror as she sees the bomb go off a mile or two away from her - thats the scene that stayed with me the most too. Its depressing to think in 2004 we are living in a world where politicians are again talking about 'winnable' wars using nuclear weapons. In many things in life you get a second chance if you make mistakes, I don't think nuclear weapons use will give us the luxury of finding out afterwards was it all worth it. Watch "Threads' and see if you think 'winnable' nuclear war is something you want to give yourself or your children.

I was about eleven or twelve when this harrowing made-for-TV docu-drama was repeated by the BBC, back to back with 'The War Game'. 'The War Game' didn't faze me much, for various reasons, but 'Threads' - that grabbed me instantly and wouldn't let go. It was not only horribly real, seeing a lower-middle class family rather like my own suddenly plunged back into the dark ages by a nuclear holocaust, it was also entirely believable (the cold war was still very much an ongoing concern back in the eighties) and shockingly compelling. I wanted to look away, but couldn't. I wanted to run from the room in fright, but couldn't. For better or worse, this film showed in full, unflinching, uncompromising detail exactly what it would be like if your home town got nuked, and gave us graphic realism in spades. Melting milk-bottles, spontaneous urination, houses reduced to rubble in seconds, burning cats, dead kids, gore, vomit, armed traffic wardens shooting looters, filth, decay, disease...it's certainly not a barrel of laughs, but Mick Jackson's aim was to shut up all the ignorant gung-hos who believed a nuclear war could be "won". He succeeded, unequivocally. The scene that made the deepest impact on me was the ravaged makeshift classroom with a ragged bunch of shell-shocked adults dazedly watching an ancient videotape of a schools programme (Words and Pictures, in fact) in an attempt to regain their numeracy and literacy skills. That was a show we used to watch at school. Work it out for yourself. In short, this is a downbeat, depressing, bleak and utterly horrible film, but I recommend it wholeheartedly to everyone. The cold war may be gone, but the threats portrayed are still very real.

Nothing on television has disturbed me as much as THREADS, There is so much to shock the viewer in this docu-drama that it`s difficult to pick the most disturbing aspect of this nuclear holocaust scenario , but if pushed I`d say it`s the ending of the rule of law. The thought of having my throat cut for a packet of cheese and onion crisps is more frightening than the lack of medical facilities , famine , radiation sickness or mutant babies. The reason THREADS wins over its rivals for the crown of " Nuclear Holocaust King " is its depiction of The Nuclear Winter , though it`s done rather unsuccessfully by sticking a dark filter over the camera , but at least it`s mentioned in depth unlike the awful THE DAY AFTER , and unlike TDA we`re shown the months and years after the war where the survivors have to cope without an ozone layer or a coherent language. These survivors are truly the unlucky ones. The final scene is so distressing it doesn`t need words Of course it hasn`t happened , the cold war is over and for that the human race must be truly greatful but as a teenager in the 1980`s nuclear holocaust didn`t only seem possible - it seemed probable . And if it looked like the bomb was going to drop I`d be having a last supper involving lots of vodka and sleeping pills. A cowards way out perhaps but as THREADS shows they won`t be giving out medals after the third world war

This is perhaps one of the most masochistic films ever made. You are taken into the personal world of two British families in Sheffield (site of a major NATO installation), who have children that are about to be married. Thousands of miles away, World War 3 slowly starts, and the ultimate horror happens. Thermonuclear war breaks out. The world, literally, grinds to a halt, in one of the most scientifically accurate depictions of nuclear war since "War Game, The" (1965). Unlike the US film "Day After, The" (1983) (TV), the film gives detailed information as to what is happening on a scientific basis. You are shown how a worst-case scenario can happen, and what the effects are, as you follow the surviving members of the two families through the aftermath. The scenes of death, destruction and disease are so realistic, I had to shower after seeing this film for the first time. But what is most disturbing is that the film includes the long-term effects of global thermonuclear war, going into weeks, months, years, even decades. The film ends thirteen years after the nuclear attack, and the final frames of the film will burn into you like no other film ever will. There can be no question that this film MUST be re-released in the USA on DVD, so that it's message will be heard and felt.

As with most other reviewers who saw this movie, I too have had shocking images burned into my brain that I will never forget. I first saw this when I was in 8th grade. Our teacher showed us the first half but then she went on sick leave and for some reason, we never got to see the rest of the film. Most of the other students didn't really care, but for years I've always wondered how the movie turned out. Well I recently rented this after I saw it at video store I just signed up at and all I can say is, "Oh my God." Although captivating, this movie is shockingly and frightfully sickening in the most humane way possible. It focuses on the threat of a nuclear war that is imposed on the residents of an industrial town in Britain, "Sheffield". The nuclear war will affect all of Britain and penultimately, the rest of the world, but we focus on several different characters and families that reside in Sheffield. We spend the first half of the movie focusing on people in every day life situations which lead into reports of a nuclear war scare and finally, widespread panic in society that results after it becomes apparent that a nuclear war WILL most likely occur. The halfway point of the movie is the nuclear explosion itself. We see buildings explode, bodies incinerate and perhaps the end of the world as we may all know it. The second half of the movie focuses on the aftermath of the nuclear devastation and the collapse of a working society. I can't even begin to name all of the horrors that are examined to great detail. We witness cannibalism, famine and disease. We particularly follow the exploits of one character, 'Ruth', pregnant with a child before the nuclear war, we witness the birth of the 'nuclear generation', and particularly, the exploits of her daughter once she is exposed to what world and life has become. When the credits rolled, my brain couldn't tell me to find the remote and press stop. It was too busy filtering through all the images and 'what if' scenarios that were running through my brain after watching "Threads". I realise that at the time of this movie's initial release, nuclear war was a possible threat. It is now almost 16 years later and this movie still has enough power and grist to tell and show you that ANYTHING 'nuclear' is wrong. This is a movie every school child should be forced to watch. I admit that it may induce nightmares, but this is a movie that has a message that MUST be received.