T|-|R£@DS 1 1984

Near-legendary BBC film dramatising the effects of a nuclear strike on Sheffield. Mick Jackson directs from 'Kes' writer Barry Hines' script
Originally made for broadcast by the BBC, Threads is grimly educational and politically charged, much like Peter Watkins' comparable The War Game, which was made for and then banned by the corporation two decades earlier.

The film tells of events leading up to, during and after a nuclear exchange between the East and West during the Cold War. The twist is, it's not shown through the eyes of politicians or soldiers, but through the experiences of a few ordinary families in Sheffield, plus some members of the local authorities.

Initially it's like watching a slightly shaky soap opera - a young couple (Meagher and Dinsdale) discuss marriage after she gets pregnant. Their parents (Brierly and May, and Moxon and Broughton) carp on about it and everything's fairly grim up north. But in the background on radio reports and TV news broadcasts there are accounts of the escalating tensions between the USSR and USA as Soviet forces invade Iran.

The first 45-minutes deal with people preparing for a possible nuclear conflict, trying to keep normal lives going as they build - to modern eyes - the ludicrously hopeful home-made shelters that government pamphlets advised, much like in Raymond Briggs' 'When The Wind Blows' (itself made into a film in 1986). The second half of Threads covers the days and years that pass after the bombs fall on Britain.

Inevitably, certain respects look dated now. The 1980s cars, clothes and technology rob the first half of the ripped-from-the-headlines punch it had when it was first shown. What hasn't lessened is the effect of Threads' determination to show just how mind-numbingly horrible a nuclear blast would be. If images of a woman peeing herself in the street as a nuclear firestorm melts glass, bricks and flesh, or the subsequent horrors of radiation sickness aren't your cup of tea, stay well away.

As the threads that bind society together snap, life in post-nuclear war Britain is shatteringly hellish. You can quibble about the special effects and the quality of some of the acting, but there's no doubting the visceral power of scenes where those left alive feed off a raw sheep, or the devastating sequence in which a survivor gives birth.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• DRAMA

[Noodles37UK]

@ArkhanTheBlack1 Saw The Day After Xmas 83 months before this was broadcast. It was shocking and had a lasting effect on me. but I never saw Threads till 3 years ago on YT and Threads is way better. The War Game is good too, at times disturbing.

But the real rival of Threads isn't The Day After, it's WW3- The Movie in the sidebar.

[Noodles37UK]

Always thought that girl should've been listening to Culture Club or Duran Duran lol

[hotelmario510]

"What if I am? It's not the end of the world is it?"

And the award for the most ironic statement made in a film goes to...

[hotelmario510]

@BohemianTonks89 No, I think a small, BBC production, just like the original, without a bigtime director, using the same script, except with bits of it changed to bring it up to date, and new, unknown BRITISH actors. Hollywood may NOT get their filthy hands on this.

[ArkhanTheBlack1]

Thankyou for posting this. I'd consider myself to be pretty de-sensitised and thick skinned to most media but this is still one of the most profoundly disturbing peices of television iv ever seen. Once youve watched "Threads" its hard to forget and along with "The War Game"" it has not lost any of its ability to shock. "Threads" is also, in my opinion, a far superior and more affecting film than the similarly themed American TV movie "The Day After" released the same year.

[puppy72100]

STILL the scarest film ever!!

[BohemianTonks89]

@TRWolf I'd be careful. Remaking this and updating with the technical info we've learned in the 2 decades since and changing the scenario from war with Russia to war with Iran would be something, but what are the odds American Hollywood dumbs down the intensity and makes it a star-studded piece of crap like 2012? They'd turn it into an action/thriller starring Keanu Reeves, not a horrifying account of what it would really be.

[wayneypayney]

i can remember thisbeing on tv, i would of been 15 back then

[TashkentFox]

I like how this was filmed in a documentary format rather than as a straightforward drama, it's as if the film is looking back on a real event from which Britain is still recovering.

[SuperOmnicron]

I think they wanted to emphasize the years after the attack as a kind of "new dark age" it was bizzare....like nothing I have ever seen. Like the "Days after the Day After"