Threads (1984 film)

[lumpenprol]

Sort of borrowed the thread from Twoism, but I well remember The Day After Tomorrow ('83), being an American, but I had never seen Threads until I watched it today on Youtube. Pretty perfect accompaniment to TH, I recommend:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MCbTvoNrAg

 

And the Day After, if anyone wants to watch that too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUEINQCKLHc

[perunamuusi]

I used to hear sirens emerge out of the ambient noise, motorway traffic, wind etc every night going to sleep in the mid 80s after watching threads..

 

There was also an edition of QED or Horizons or Panorama or something detailing the effects of a nuclear attack which probably scared me even more.

The pumpkin (a human head) standing by the glass window in the blast zone was pretty cool.

 

And a book called the Nuclear War file (?) I borrowed from the mobile library. It had lots of cool and scary facts and statistics to explain how much of my head would be melted away by different types of missiles at different ranges. My favourite nuke was called the "peacekeeper".

[mcbpete]

I don't know if I can bring myself to watch the film again. Not because it was bad, I thought it was a really worthwhile watch and suggest others watch it too, but because it was just so relentlessly bleak for the entire 90 minute duration. I actually let out a hysterical laugh at the end from the final kicker followed by the end credits. Bombs - just say no.

[Guest Aces]

Threads is a great film. Achieved what it set it set out to do and then some! There was a film made in the sixties called The War Game which was very similar. In fact it was effective it was considered too realistic and wasn't shown until the eighties. I recommend it if you've not seen it.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geva0lLP-Zs

 

When I was at school I read a book in english class called Children Of The Dust. It gave me nightmares then. There is a particularly gruesome description of somebody dying of radiation poisoning which has stuck with me ever since, this is supposed to be a kids book. Heh.

[Guest Araungzeb]

Threads contains the most effective horror I've encountered in film format.

Agreed 100%, I was just going to say that. "Horror" films have never done much for me as a genre, but I still get nuclear apocalypse nightmares from time to time as a result of this and The Day After. The scene right before Sheffield is nuked... yikes.

[cebec]

Threads is great! One of the first things that came to mind when the TH hype-machine kicked into gear. Highly recommended... Only place you're likely to see a flaming cat and people wetting themselves in the same film.

[mcbpete]

Go to 1:42:56 of Threads for the most unsettling use of a kids TV show ever. Sends shivers down my spine.

[joshuatxuk]

Been meaning to watch this for years, nice to see it up on YT.

 

It's a bit strange to look back on, but I actually managed to read two post-nuclear fiction books from 1957 and 1959 as part of class reading assignments (and at two completely different schools). (They were quasi-required: we had a limited choice of books to read on top of our regular literature requirements.)

 

The books were Alas, Babylon and On The Beach. I enjoyed both, though On The Beach was far more melancholy and detached (ironically, though a lot less graphic) as that particular novel has a nuclear fallout scenario in which no life is going to survive. (The novel cites cobalt covered nukes as the reason for this). The late 70s and 80s era films are not doubt more of an influence on BoC, for me as someone in my late 20s the Cold War is much more of a "historical" topic, but an eerie one nonetheless, and only because I'm particularly interested in the topic I find it very familiar. I suppose others in my generation grew up with things like the Gulf War and War on Terror as a backdrop, which is of a completely different tone and scope than the Cold War.

[joshuatxuk]

My favourite nuke was called the "peacekeeper".

 

The use of such doublespeak in the US nuclear forces is quite rampant:

 

B-36 "Peacemaker" Bomber:

 

 

Strategic Air Command official motto:

 

 

Official emblem, note the Olive Branch:

 

 

Ronald Reagan's "Peace Through Strength" rhetoric:

 

[Npoess]

That was quite depressing.

 

I like how they use more than the half of the movie, just to show normal people doing normal, trivial and everyday stuff, it makes the impact of the disaster so much more powerful. Something a mindless blockbuster disaster-movie would totally neglect.

[chaosmachine]

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1856457/

[cebec]

^ LOL

glad to see she's given proper credit somewhere

[mcbpete]

BTW Here's the entire collection of the infinitely creepy Protect and Survive P.I.F. series - http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060022098

 

The logo of which is very similar to the Geogaddi vinyl etching -

 

 

[joshuatxuk]

^whoa! nice find there

 

"nuclear family"

 

I love how much of their work has double meanings and multiple references

[lumpenprol]

wow, great find mcbpete!

[Guest englishbob]

First saw this on its first transmission when I was 13. Fucked me up for life.

[beerwolf]

I used to hear sirens emerge out of the ambient noise, motorway traffic, wind etc every night going to sleep in the mid 80s after watching threads..

 

 

 

savage, I remember the same thing

 

I live not too far away from a large industrial estate (once upon a time the biggest in Europe) though its pretty 'leafy' where I am, if the wind was blowing in my direction I would lay in bed at night as a child hearing all manner of unexplained noises and whirls and my imagination used to run riot, mostly in a bad way. The most unsetteling was the cooling towers, sometimes they used to made this peculier noise late at night (doing what they do). As a kid I never knew where these sounds came from, all I used to here was this fucked up, dark, ambient industrial groan. It was really unsettling and mysterious.

[manmower]

Watched this for the first time last night. It's relentlessly bleak alright. Sometimes I wasn't sure whether its intent was to depict the realistic aftermath of a nuclear war (which is bound to be plenty shocking) or to pile it on with the horrors for sheer shock value. Even if most of the movie was indeed realistic or plausible, the ending undermined that for me.

 

 

Seriously, handing a girl her stillborn and/or deformed bab(b)y without warning was a bit too much to take seriously. I'm sure if you wanted to you could explain it away by a completely desensitized nurse or something but it's still a cheap ending to me.

 

 

The low-budget B-movie vibe of the whole thing doesn't help either. Overall this movie was at its best when it was a bit more subtle.

 

 

Like when Ruth dies peacefully but at a very young age, aged prematurely from the radiation and UV exposure etc., or the way the kids barely speak English, showing how far civilization could regress without an educational system and with no-one having the time or energy to teach their children.

 

 

 

My favourite nuke was called the "peacekeeper".

 

I always liked the "Minuteman" variety, because its name perfectly captures that rationale of "even if we're doomed, let's at least send some nukes back their way so we both lose".

[keltoi]

also a must watch...

 

when the wind blows (1986)

 

[youtubehd]N9aHT-IlkHo[/youtubehd]

 

i clearly remember being genuinely worried for my (/our) safety when 'threads' was shown at primary school.

[Guest Dogboy73]

I thought of that film (The Day After) when I saw the cover of Tomorrow's Harvest. I remember watching that when I was a kid. Scared the crap out of me! I remember all the other kids talking about it in school. Must have been about 6 or 7 years old! Back then the threat of an all out nuclear war between the West & the Soviets & their allies seemed very real! People were very concerned. I guess now the threat is just as real. If anything there are a lot more nuclear weapons now. And to think of some of the idiots with their fingers on the button. I mean Sarah Palin was extremely close to becoming second in command of the US! WE'RE ALL FUCKING DOOMED!!!!

[lumpenprol]

I thought of that film (The Day After) when I saw the cover of Tomorrow's Harvest. I remember watching that when I was a kid. Scared the crap out of me! I remember all the other kids talking about it in school. Must have been about 6 or 7 years old! Back then the threat of an all out nuclear war between the West & the Soviets & their allies seemed very real! People were very concerned. I guess now the threat is just as real. If anything there are a lot more nuclear weapons now. And to think of some of the idiots with their fingers on the button. I mean Sarah Palin was extremely close to becoming second in command of the US! WE'RE ALL FUCKING DOOMED!!!!

 

I was in exactly the same boat, is the 73 in your username for your birth year? I'm also a '73-er

 

The low-budget B-movie vibe of the whole thing doesn't help either.

 

it's a BBC docudrama from the mid 80s, though. it's just like that. not exactly a glossy Hollywood production.

 

I liked their creative solutions to their low budget. I think they actually did a really good job. Loved the burning corpses, lol

[Guest Dogboy73]

 

I thought of that film (The Day After) when I saw the cover of Tomorrow's Harvest. I remember watching that when I was a kid. Scared the crap out of me! I remember all the other kids talking about it in school. Must have been about 6 or 7 years old! Back then the threat of an all out nuclear war between the West & the Soviets & their allies seemed very real! People were very concerned. I guess now the threat is just as real. If anything there are a lot more nuclear weapons now. And to think of some of the idiots with their fingers on the button. I mean Sarah Palin was extremely close to becoming second in command of the US! WE'RE ALL FUCKING DOOMED!!!!

 

I was in exactly the same boat, is the 73 in your username for your birth year? I'm also a '73-er

 

Yep. 70's baby, early 80's child. Thatcher was in power, times were tight & sour etc,

 

[andyb]

Just came across this interesting post on reddit.

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1g34em/tomorrows_harvest_and_a_boy_and_his_dog/

[keltoi]

 

I thought of that film (The Day After) when I saw the cover of Tomorrow's Harvest. I remember watching that when I was a kid. Scared the crap out of me! I remember all the other kids talking about it in school. Must have been about 6 or 7 years old! Back then the threat of an all out nuclear war between the West & the Soviets & their allies seemed very real! People were very concerned. I guess now the threat is just as real. If anything there are a lot more nuclear weapons now. And to think of some of the idiots with their fingers on the button. I mean Sarah Palin was extremely close to becoming second in command of the US! WE'RE ALL FUCKING DOOMED!!!!

 

I was in exactly the same boat, is the 73 in your username for your birth year? I'm also a '73-er

 

 

 

'74 baby! i remember having a chat with my dad about the imminent apocalypse after i'd seen threads at school(aged 9-10). i was convinced the bomb would drop any minute.