Threads is NIGHTMARE FUEL
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
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💀 UTG DEEP DISCUSSIONS 💀
🎥 Topics of Terror from the Rabbit Hole of Randomness
🍿 Threads is NIGHTMARE FUEL (1984)
🎬 Connor takes on a deep discussion, where he dives into random subjects about a variety of horrific matters! This time, he dives into a 1984 TV Movie, Threads, and its graphic depiction of a nuclear Britain!
👮🏼 Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use.
🦇 Huge thanks to Karl Casey @White Bat Audio on the music!
#Threads #NuclearWarfare #NuclearWar
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Many people have addressed there being more than one warhead. This is indeed correct. I was stressing the one warhead that hit Sheffield in particular (the 'whiteout' blast) as that is the main one in the film for inflicting the majority of damage we see for the rest of the film. Some amazing comments from Ghoul Gang members Neil Rusling and Ken Koser down below that clarify the warheads in Threads :) - Connor
Thanks for pointing this out, so I don't have to. If it has only one city hit, there would be safe areas to escape to. That's not what WWIII is. This film is meant to scare people, and it resulted in both sides reducing their stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
One above NORTH SEA, ONE NATO BASE AND R.A.F. BASE......310 MEGATONS TOTAL.....THE WORLD 3000......MEGATONS
it escalated to GTNW
""Globa""l Thermal Nuclear War..
@@christopherseat9871 1st strike above the North Sea, is to take out, (EMP), all the RAF radar and communications bases along the UK East Coast and inland Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire etc.
same for West Coast of Europe, (including as far North as Denmark), from same warhead.
in the theatre of war,
the 1st thing to take out is -
communications
the
2nd - transportation
3rd - Supplies- fuel - electricity oil, gas, food, water, weapons.
I'm from Newark upon Trent.
UA-cam -
Newark and the civil war.
Newark is the "key" town to the North .
during the Civil war, Newark was put under siege FIVE years.
WE NEVER SURRENDERED. we stood our ground.
it took King Charles to come to tell us to out faces, we'd won, we could stand down.
coming from Newark, you learn about warfare.
ps
the TV programme
Newark
Newark
is the very same place.
I grew up in the actual Council estate it's filmed in - Hawtonvillie
very tough an rough mental place .
(lots of folks from these types of places, in the Midlands, end up in the special forces..)
I was in the 17/23 death or Glory boys ☠
stay safe and well .
@@grahamfisher5436 You stay safe as well Graham Fisher.
One of the things that got me in threads, was how language gradually disappeared. People stopped talking, and life was so bleak and only ever got worse, so speech was mostly replaced by grunts.
As a linguistics student, it’s equally frightening and fascinating. The English that remains with the post-nuclear generation is purely for bare communication and abandons the need for grammar entirely. The scene where Ruth’s daughter is fighting off the two boys for her food is a perfect example-the boys are saying “geeus”, a strange combination of typical northern slang and slurred, faulty pronunciation. Later, when Jane gives birth, she only screams “coming” over and over at the nurse. She may not have any idea what is actually happening, but she does know that something is coming out of her and thus is the only thing she can (or really needs to) communicate.
We going back to ooga booga
@@myrin265 it would be a return to when every village had a different dialect and the idea of a British nation after a couple generations at most would be nonexistent, just a million hungry broken families grunting at each other
Yeah,the English language disappears-in its own birthplace.
@@kevincarlson668 it already is doing 😳
I've once heard Threads described as "the death of hope".
And damn, it fits.
Ironic because Threads is the most optimistic outcome of a nuclear war. The damage and trauma and harrowing scenes we see in the film are an optimistic outcome of nuclear war, in reality it would be so much worse
@@marigoldbells9581Also by the end we see miners back at work, steam engines puffing away and that basic electrical services have been restored. So modern civilization regressed to barbarism in nothing flat- but in only 13 years it has progressed to the Early Industrial Age. That’s quite a jump.
@@marigoldbells9581how would it be worse?
There's a lot of media that thinks that if the end came, we'd be stuck in the dark ages again. But we have the knowledge and books and know how to rebuild after, so it's not at all surprising that with infrastructure, no matter how small, would return surprisingly quickly.@@robertfolkner9253
@@honved1 210 megatons is a low estimate of how many nukes would be dropped on Britain, the experts of the time said it was more likely it would be over 1000 megatons.
The creepiest thing in this film (other than that hospital scene) is the fact several characters just vanish and we never see or hear them again. This is scary to me, because I just imagine everyone I know just disappearing and never finding out where they are or what happened to them. That thought scares me more than most horror films.
That horror show is happening right now in Hawaii where global warming has caused a devastating fire.
The government has asked the survivors to submit to DNA tests in order to identify the last remaining pieces of their loved ones.
It's horrifying.
Add onto all of that the real possibility of this happening in real life. Not many things can say that
Would you rather know that they were vaporized in a fraction of a second in a nuclear blast? Or that they died, falling apart from radiation sickness in a hospital, or in their homes? If they're not around, I'd rather not know. Deal with what's in front of me, and focus on surviving. Assuming I make it to that point.....
@@jazzx251 Or direct energy weapons. The houses with the blue roof was left untouched.
Aside from everything else that the survivors had to deal with, a lack of closure on what happened to your missing loved ones must be soul destroying. Jimmy most likely died in the blast, but Ruth never truly got to find out. To her, he may still be out there despite the statistical odds
Literally the scariest part of this is the post nuclear society it’s so disturbing
@@Kuznet609 I’ll have to check that out Stalker is one of my all time favourites
Yeah it definetly puts to bed any notion of there being a "sexy and cool" post-apocalyptic... anything.
@@DanielGjrTing who the hell thinks that would be sexy and cool?
@@fromunderthekilt6310 I feel like some post-spocalyptic stories and settings have this underlying theme of "yes the world has gone to hell and thats tragic" but it also frees characters from the constraints of polite society so that they can be heroes engaged in self sufficient and ultimately meaningful adventures.
Like the apocalypse has brought excitement and action back to the corpse of an otherwise boring and constraining world. It becomes a fantasy that you might almost dream about at the office, a chance to become a lone wolf survivor who doesnt need to worry about anything other than getting food and keeping himself safe. You become a more cool and sexy version of yourself. Think Mad Max or Fallout or even I am Legend.
Threads on the other hand completely obliterates that trope and presents the end of the world as the thing that it is: The end of the world.
Hope that makes sense.
@Dust really? Jesus Christ. Is that from playing video games or something?
The shot of the blood running down the steps of the hospital would in any other horror film come off as narmy and tacky, but if anything here it really amplifies how death-ridden the hospital is, this isn't some serial killer going mad and bathing in the blood they've shed, this is the bloodspill of innocent victims as the medical staff within are trying their best and failing to save lives. Hospitals are meant to be safe, clean places where you know you'll be able to be treated and cared for, so when the steps of the hospital you're walking towards have blood literally dripping down them, potentially and unintentionally spilled by the medical staff as they panic to save lives, it's just a nauseating and hopeless feeling it gives you
INCREDIBLE comment
@@UnleashTheGhouls aww thanks man, I work in healthcare so I think that might have been why my reaction is so visceral 🤣
They use similar imagery in The Killing Fields, when the journalists all go to the hospital.
From memory the off camera narrator points out that medicines, bandages and clinical support are either absent or in extremely short supply. In such conditions no doctor or nurse can properly apply their skills, and they are little better off than the next survivor of a nuclear weapon attack.
I think they may have based the hospital scenes off of real accounts from the Hiroshima hospital in 1945
I think the fact that the daughter refers to her mother by her first name (Ruth) is chilling in itself as well. To me it indicates how distant their connection must have been compared to a normal mother-daughter relationship. Either Ruth simply couldn't bear being too attached to her daughter because of the likelihood of either of them dying at any given time. Or the fact that she lost so much that she simply does not see her child as her child anymore. I think this one detail alone shows how the daughter's dead pan reaction to Ruth dying was purposefully planned, not just incidental.
People seem to really miss what's going on with the daughter. One of the info cards talks about the radiation causing poor mental development. Her daughter may be physically fine but she's mentally undeveloped, thats why she calls her mother Ruth, its because its what everyone else calls her, and the reason she barely bats an eyelid is because she's probably been surrounded by death and also has little idea that a mother is in relation to anyone else in her life, it's also why she talks to stuntedly later on.
I always called my parents by their first names and still do lol
@@MazeMe in different countries - different tradition. In my it would be weird to call your parents by name.
I would not be surprised if Ruth uttered more than four or five words to her daughter in their ten years together. In each other's eyes they were not mother and child but instead just other survivors. One of the reasons Ruth probably didn't just abandon Jane is due to her being one of the last thing to remember Jimmy by, and to possibly not be completely alone in the apocalypse. Tragic stuff.
@@HappyAspid Different families* Country makes no difference.
I think the best thing about this movie is that it isn’t shot like a traditional movie with long shots/ scripted conversations it cuts in and out of scenes relatively rapidly and almost seems more like a news documentary from an alternative reality
The cinematography and direction is excellent. Very much like a doc
@@UnleashTheGhouls highly suggest A Very British Coup, also directed by Mick Jackson.
It's quite a bit lighter material, but the cinematography works to a very similar effect, with the feel of a realistic and dark political documentary.
Yeah for a movie with very little action, the pace is fantastic and keeps the tension at max
It was a function of the budget.....but still very effective.
The BBC have done a few of these "Docu - Dramas", another good one is "The Day Britain Stood Still" which is about how the uncoordinated nature of mass privitisation could potentially create a nation breaking disaster.
Threads has been their best one so far.
The fact that real nukes actually cause a lot more damage than depicted in the film is crazy, Nukes have the power to literally VAPORIZE entire people and city blocks
That's the thing, this is meant to be the most OPTIMISTIC outcome of a nuclear attack, and look how bleak it is! What would an actual nuclear war be like??
You know what is even more nightmare fuel than this? Is knowing that we are closer to nuclear anhilation now than we ever was during the cold war...
Not sure if you follow geopolitics closely besides Putin bad Zelisnky good, but thing is, if Russia loses, the whole world may be burn to hell, and no, i'm not defending Putin here, but, folks should consider what may happen if he got cornered, theres no way to predict what the madman would do in this position, he has the power the end the world in his hands...
Again, we may wake up tomorrow with the sound of blast windows, or worst, not even wake up, be vaporized before the sound of the blast even reach our brains, and this would be the lucky ones.
In the movie, the nuke is targeted at an airbase well outside of Sheffield. What they're getting is the fallout, some of the intense heat, and the shockwave. Total devastation, but not vaporisation.
@@jazzx251 not well outside, just outside, not far at all if you look on a uk map at RAF bases across the UK you'll see if they're targets they'll decimate the uk, we are so small all it would really take is one half decent nuke in the Midlands to fk the entire country and kill millions instantly
@@jazzx251 I think the first one hit RAF Finningley (now Robin Hood Airport) which is outside the city. Idk about the second... the inference is that the second one burst over the city centre, which would make sense as the Russians regarded population centres as countervalue targets even if they had no military or industrial value, but the damage (to the Town Hall and Ruth and Jimmy's houses) is inconsistent with that.
I've seen "Threads" a few times and I find all the scenes leading up to the bombing scarier than the post-bomb scenes. The news about the escalating conflict along with the "Protect and Survive" PSAs never fail to give me shivers
and here we are again...this could actually happen...what the fuck are we doing as a species :-(
@@Drobium77 highly unlikely nuclear war will ever break out. The reason nuclear weapons were so popular in the 60s was because of how inaccurate bombs and missiles were. Nowadays our weaponry is so precise that mass destruction is pointless when we could just use one missile to take out a base or a key point. That and the plan to nuke a part of a front and rush through has been proven to not work out. So as we progress from the 60s each year nuclear war becomes less and less of a threat.
@@ianbrodrick7360 Well then, why not just enjoy some nuclear war? Nothing to see here - move along...
How is the after effect of a bomb going off less scary than before that
@Ian Brodrick Oh wow, I was concerned due to the number of experts that say otherwise, but I’ll just trust you then
That hospital scene scarred me more than any horror movie has
Yeah, the hospital scene was probably the most brutal thing in the movie. People having amputations, shrapnel removals, horrible burns treated, all without antibiotics, anesthetics, or even a sanitized environment.
@@L_mattox The fact that there's plenty of shots of the floors being grimy and smeared with blood, bedsheets being used as makeshift bandages, water being contaminated and dirty, surgeons operating without rubber gloves, really really sets your imagination off to how much disease and sickness would exist there, the one shot that stays to me the most is the blood running down the steps of the hospital
My god…when everyone in the hospital starts shrieking in pain all at once when the doctors start applying the makeshift antiseptic to their wounds. I will never forget that as long as I live.
@@CalvinJourno good god you can actually feel it, especially since there's that brief shot of salt being mixed in with the water, and then when you see it being dabbed on the wounds and the patients shriek out, you can feel it 🤮
The amputation especially fucked with me.
It was 3 nukes depicted. The nuclear winter is caused by a full scale nuclear world war. Carl Sagan's team concluded that a nuclear winter would be enough to destroy humanity because all plant life would rapidly die. Threads was being optimistic!
Thx for making this. Only saw it once. Seared into me.
UA-cam
ON THE 8TH DAY.
Humans survived volcanic winters in the past i don't see why we couldn't survive a nuclear one. Sure most will die but it only takes ~1000 people to rebuild the species.
@@nathanchirnside6802 That's pure supposition. The genetic mutations, the poisoned everything, the psychological trauma destroying long term civilisation. That's of no account to you. You ought to get a government job - you have the right mentality.
@@nathanchirnside6802 volcanic winters wouldn't have ever gotten so bad as a full on nuclear exchange between two superpowers each with more than 20000 nukes. Volcanic winters usually would have one spot on Earth that would be the cause of it. With nuclear detonations there would be thousands of spots of destruction all around the world. Plus radiation, the radioactive ash falling and blanketing everything and turning the water into poison. And everything on Earth needs water.
citation needed but the scientific consensus on weather a global nuclear war would really cause a nuclear winter is hotly contested these days. Climate science is a tricky thing to predict.
The scene in the hospital where the man was getting his leg amputated without any anesthetics or medication while screaming in pain continues to haunt me
Even your profile pic is haunting me, Hassan! - Connor
reminds me of Stalingrad (90's German film) where some guy was getting an amputation and screaming for like 20 solid seconds
Welcome to medicine pre-anesthetics. The American Civil War is riddled with stories of soldiers having limbs sawn off without any anesthesia or antibiotics or pretty much anything but something to clench in their teeth.
Overlooked the part where Ruth silently bartered, well, herself, for just a few dead rats.
Lovely film.
And you think that wouldn't happen? Of course women are going to barter sex for food. It'll be just about all we have with which to bargain at that point. We women can also expect multiple rapes unless we have a way to defend ourselves. "Civilization" on humanity is only a very thin veneer. None of us want to think about the wolves we are inside but the test of our true selves is any major disaster. It's nearly always "me and mine" at that point and screw civility.
@@LauraS1👍👍💯💯. The “every man for himself” mentality
The Road: I am the most depressing and bleak Post Apo movie ever made.
Threads: Sit down you little shit, I have a story to tell you.
Hmm, the book of The Road is bleaker still and affected me in much the same way as Threads.
The road was something else crazy to see it mentioned, haven’t seen threads but can’t believe it would be worse
Neither is 'worse' than the other. Same nightmare, different dreamers.
@casinodelonge
Yes, the book is excellent, though the movie I thought was quite faithful. "The Road" has no focus on the cause of the global devastation, but it is quite a reflection on the concept of a human extinction event. Well-written dive into the emotions of human extinction.
I remember my mother telling me about when she watched this when it first aired during the Reagan era in school when she was young. It apparently traumatised her so much that she still gets bad dreams about it to this day. Seeing this getting talked about and analysed and I now know why she was so permanently scarred by it...
It certainly is one for the memory books. Sadly, not the memories we want to remember. Thank you for sharing your story
It is still just as relevant today as it was almost 40 years ago.
I was one of those children too, bless your mum because it was extremely harrowing to be made to watch that film in school at such a young age. I will never properly get over it 😐. We were so close to it happening too, ask your mum if she remembers the nuclear siren practice tests 😐
Dude they have played this crap in schools in the 80s it sucked.
I want to make it clear I'm a legal psychopath the hospital scene still gets me a bit.
Speaking as a relatively un-worldly American, Threads fucking decimated me the first time I watched it. Post-apocalyptic movies WISH they could evoke the kind of sorrow that Threads does.
"Threads is just cold war propaganda to install the Red Scare"
My brother in Christ it worked. We start the construction of the new nuclear fallout shelter at 7 AM
The film has nothing to do with the red scare, it does not attack the soviets or the US but rather makes the point clear as day that no one would win a nuclear war and no one would escape it, even if you were not a nation directly involved, you would be affected by such an event
@@s7robin105
|----------->
The joke-----^ your head
@@the_gaming_rabbit8017 I think it was just a bad joke
Propaganda for anti nucléar war
@@thecamocampaindude5167 I know, it's a joke
I watched Threads, and the next day I joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. I was terrified. The idea of this being COMPLETELY viable, terrified me.
This movie should be viewed in school, so that nobody in their right mind will ever let it get that far.
As was said in the movie: „you cannot win a nuclear war“
Very true.
In 1987, our teacher was giving us "The Scare" talk about nuclear war. She said that we would "probably, probably all be dead by 1990" because we lived next to a Nike launch base. My classmate Jim challenged her, "So, we should we have to go to school?" She sent him to the principal's office.
I'd like to inform you school never changed, my social studies teacher told us last year we wouldn't make it to adulthood either.
Did you have to camp out to get the latest Jordans
9:31 Notice below the pillow there’s a book about birds Jimmy (Ruth’s fiancé) had. Ruth did carry it with her all that time even though abandoning it could’ve made a difference between her surviving and dying when her strength and food were scarce. This scene was so unlike all the other post-attack ones which were devoid of any empathy and humanity it made me weep.
My best friend and I watched this with rum & coke and Chinese food in January 2020. We were terrified but captivated. A few days later we drove out with another friend to the old nuclear bunker at Hack Green in Cheshire. I had a panic attack in the medical room after realising that trauma like this is still a possibility in this day and age. As of 2022, all the shit with Ukraine and Russia has spooked me even more, as it makes me pray that Threads never becomes a reality.
How about now?
Threads should be required viewing in every school and university in THE WORLD.
It won't be shown in places like China and Russia. They say it would never happen because their leadership is so brilliant.
I saw it when I was 12.
It messed with generations.
We felt the reality of Nuclear War.
We were shitting ourselves.
The fact it went on was horrifying.
We could not deal with this madness.
Horrible horrible horrible
Remember watching this in school and when i say the class was deathly silent is an understatement. No one could speak for minutes and i can honestly say that it haunted me for days and now it takes a lot to scare me and give me chills like Threads did. Truly a fantastic piece of cinema.
The redhead woman with the burned dead baby... for the longest time I had to skip past that part (and the later flashback) as the way she looks at you is just terrifying 😱 Threads is a masterclass in low-budget, high-impact filmmaking from some of the best in the business.
A still of that scene was the first thing I ever saw from the movie.
That nightmarish stare; and when you think about the baby...one one hand it`s horrible, while on the other hand s/he wouldn`t have to suffer the aftermath of the blast.😱😢
It’s like looking at the ghost of nuclear apocalypse
Maybe it’s time to re-air this on BBC…
Just a thought.
It would be an appropriate time, given the condition of the world. It's something that a lot more people need to see
Isn't The war game from the middle 60's ahead of Threads in the que?!
@@rayoung74 yep the War game is kicking about somewhere on line also the US version of this that was called The day after
They should recreate it so it's more relevant to now with cyber warfare.
It is!!!!!!
Good point made that during Covid we sometimes saw the worst coming out in people {panic buying, selfishness, etc) which gives a glimpse of how easily society can break down...
THIS MAY SOUND INSULTING, but I'm so glad to start seeing videos by younger people that deal with serious subjects MINUS glib/ironic/jokey-"cute" comments every few seconds.
Thanks for the video, your observations, editing and...your tone.
I saw this in mid-80's when i was living in England/working at Pinewood. Having grown up in the 50's, the subject matter and the horrifying possibilities were kind of a way of life, the background "music" behind all things. I felt---as you so well express--that THREADS is one of cinemas' great moments where meaningful subject was brilliantly supported by the smartest narrative tools used most brilliantly
Not insulting at all! I'm very thankful for your kind comment! - Connor
It's cool bro
The most depressing and simply horrifying movie I've ever watched, I used to think "the road" held that title, this movie definitely made me thankful for the world we have, no matter how uncomfortable I may feel, nothing compares to what the second half of the movie depicted.
i run a university horror society, and we decided to show this film at a committee social.
its the uni of sheffield, lol
Now THAT was a bold choice hahaha
As an alumni of UoS from the 90s, it was always said you can spot someone from
Sheffield as they always cheered when the Egg Box was destroyed…
Damn that's cold AND impressive
@@simonclifton7541 Ironically , the egg box had the makeshift bunker underneath it. You could see the entrance from Union Street when the egg box underground car park doors were open.
This isn’t a film, it’s a PSA for world leaders.
Right now it seems more like a manual.
@@urosmarjanovic663 It’s god’s ultimate reset button.
@@Uajd-hb1qsThe horns of Gabriel bringing us the Christo-Posadist communist heaven on earth. We're so fucked.
I saw this movie on UA-cam once. That was years ago and it has really stuck with me. You cant really ever forget it. I always have to remind myself that this could all really happen because the human mind doesn't want to believe it
I saw a comment on another review of Threads
“Conversations that have never happened , and never will happen”
“Have you ever seen the film Threads ?”
“Not sure , remind me what happened in it ?”
Saw this when I was 12 in 1987. It was shown to us in our drama class! The line the guy says ‘They’ve done it, they’ve bloody done it’ when he sees the mushroom cloud always sticks with me. Also images of the melting milk bottles on the step stick with me. I’ve seen it a few times since and it’s even more powerful now as an adult. Brilliant but very scary film. Amazing to think the guy who directed it went on to direct The Bodyguard 😀
One of the things that makes Threads such a horrifying film is that they don't shy away from the things that viewers would dread to see in a film. For example, you don't want to see a helpless little cat, surrounded by fire, slowly dying. Even though the audience doesn't want to see that, they still show it because it gives you a sense of how horrifying the reality was for the characters and the world. It's scarier than any horror film because people know that nuclear war could have happened in the past and still might today and in the future. I'm not saying it's likely a nuclear will break out, but the fact that humanity possesses the weapons and the nutters that will have the capability to press that button, it shows that the threat of nuclear war won't ever go away. It’s such an Astonishing, Powerful, Emotional, Heartbreaking feeling when a movie like this can bawl your eyes out, and make you think this deep. From the editing, sound effects, acting & special effects...this film brings the fear of the weapons we built to protect ourselves destroying our souls in the most disturbing way possible. Movies like Threads have is the ability to understand this way through the aftermath of nuclear warfare, Requiem For A Dream, gave us the same ability o think about drugs & addiction. Just imagine what would happen if every movie about negative things in life, Murder, Suicide, Death, Car Crashes, School Shootings, Car Crashes, Hate, Rage, Sadness & every thing else like this was presented in that way in a movie just like Threads 1984 & Requiem For A Dream. The world would be a better place to live.....
Nuff Said.
the worst part is that Threads still didn't go far enough, if you read some of the testimonies of Hiroshima survivors, it's far worse.
Nuclear war absolutely WILL happen, it's just a matter of when, and how big.
No one dies violently on camera except the looters who get shot. We don't see what happens to Jimmy or Alison but they very likely died, Michael's leg is sticking out from under a pile of bricks, Jimmy's mom we see as a still corpse, Ruth's grandmother is laid under a blanket, we don't see the bodies but hear flies buzzing around the corpses of Ruth's parents after they were murdered for food, Jimmy's dad drinks himself to death and we don't see it, Ruth just passes out and dies quietly.
Threads is brutal.
The flip side of the coin was Testament, where there was no destruction, no bodies, just the realization that it happened and the slow disappearance of folks you’ve come to know.
Threads helped me during a dark time in my life. I was so unappreciative. No job, wasn’t thankful for those around me. If you or anyone just feel like an unlucky drifter, give this a watch
Hope you're in a better place friend
I saw this back in 1985 when I was 14 years old. A few months after the 1983 I saw the ABC film The Day After. Both movies traumatized me but nothing like Threads did. Brutal, jarring and hits you right in the stomach! Watched it again in 2015. Traumatized me again. A must watch for every generation! People don’t realize how close this came to be in reality.
Sadly people don’t realize how close this is to reality!
"how close this came to reality"? It's now more than ever to come to reality
Between Threads and The Day After, I have to say Threads was the better movie. The Day After was too slick and high production... it didn't have the visceral punch of Threads.
Threads was depressing as hell. I can also suggest another depressing post nuclear movie made by the (!) Soviet Union. It's called "dead man's letters" - just a post nuclear perspective from their point of view.
Thank you for the recommendation!
For some strange reason I thought Threads was made in the Soviet Union. Weird.
There's also the Soviet short animated film "There Will Come Soft Rains".
@@Takeshi357 based off of a short story by Ray Bradbury
I saw threads the first time in 84 & it literally gave me nightmares. It's the only film I've ever seen to have crept into my unconscious mind that way. I recently viewed it again & it's still the bleakest, most terrifying film I've ever seen. I don't know how anyone could watch that film & not be profoundly disturbed by it.
The first hour of the film felt mundane but that only makes the horror of hour 2 more terrifying.
EXACTLY!
The ending is the most chilling part of the film .
She drops the deformed radiation damaged baby which depicts the future of the human race that there is none as the human gene pool is irrevocably damaged making regeneration of the human species impossible.
I’ve watched virtually every horror film worth watching from the last 50~ years. None of them, not even the absolutely most disturbing and horrifying the horror genre, even *comes close* to the sheer dread and anxiety that has stayed with me since I first watched Threads. A masterpiece that I would honestly recommend to no one.
It is indeed, because the BBC didn't attempt to sugar-coat anything. There was no "It's tough but we'll come through this!" nonsense offered. What was offered was "If this happens, don't kid yourself, we are ALL fucked. The living truly will envy the dead."
I was in my 30s when I saw this for the first time and even at that age it gave me nightmares for a month.
I just watched this for the first time 2 weeks ago. It terrified me. My eyes were glued to the screen, and I was numb. Everyone should watch this movie.
Very important and disturbing film.
Just saw this last week as a UA-cam recommendation and I’ve got nothing but respect for this film. As a lifetime horror fan I’m always looking for what truly horrifies and I’ve found the most effective horror, for me, has to be grounded in reality. It doesn’t get any more real than this.
And what is the horror here? Hopelessness. The film just beats the shit out of any sense of positive outlook you might have had. Towards the end I found myself empathizing with the people who were left with the task of rebuilding. Thinking the lucky ones were the victims of the initial blast. The real horror is living in the wake of it. Threads just… bends you over and dry fucks your humanity. But you don’t necessarily have to enjoy a movie to love it. Just masterfully done, I’m in awe and recommending it to any horror fan.
it's fellow human beings that are the real horror.
and there's nothing more terrifying than real life.
@@grahamfisher5436 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Saw this in year 10 at school. Definitely one of the scariest films ever made
Snap 1993!
I'm almost completely desensitised, but I gotta say I can see why this would scare a lot of people, the film is very well made, I watched it in awe if I'm honest, so well put together, very authentic and very gritty.
Mostly just angers me knowing that it is all completely avoidable and an utter waste of human potential
Let's all hope that all of that never happens for real.
we need to fucking scare a lot of people...this is just getting too close now...even closer than when this film aired
I recently watched This England. The same sense of people becoming objects and statistics was well conveyed in a very similar way. Call centre staff calling relatives with prescripted messages that their loved one has died of COVID. It really hammered home the coldness of the state in the face of mass death. Your life becomes just another day at the office for someone and the grieving relatives almost an afterthought. I only mention this because at the time it reminded me of Threads. How people's complex lives and loves are reduced to nothing against the backdrop of a major event.
I recall watching this as a young fella when the BBC first broadcast it. It scared the britches off of me. The Day After was disturbing but Threads had a visceral rawness. A nightmarish horror movie, all the more frightening because it's an entirely possible scenario, and even more so today given the East-West knife-edge tensions currently at play. Society thrown back into the mediaeval era. I bought the DVD about ten years ago to scare the crap out of myself again....and again.
Yeah it’s definitely much more scary now knowing how close we are to WW3 if things go south with Russia.
What I believe happened in threads was that multiple nuclear warheads were detonated they start far away and then a direct hit.
People tend to think well you drop an atomic bomb on a city and that's it. No you use multiple nuclear bombs not one big one.
An airport can get several one directly hitting it and several surrounding it to knock any airplanes out of the sky. And if there's a military base nearby it can receive several on its own to make sure it's destroyed.
So what you're seeing in the movie is those multiple destinations leading to being directly under a nuclear explosion.
I have to make a correction to your excellent review. There were numerous warheads dropped, many on Sheffield and many more around the UK, not including the rest of the world. The first one takes out the RAF base, and then you see the damage from more warheads as the buildings explode and the underground bunker where the mayor and others is severely damaged, Then there is a graphic that states that 80 Megatons (which is the equivalent of 80 million tons of TNT) were dropped on the UK, which suggests more than a hundred warheads hit the country. A chilling follow up to this film is to read the book "The Doomsday Machine" by Daniel Ellsberg. You wont sleep for a week after you finish it,
Thank you for the insight Ken! I had only watched Threads once prior to this review, perhaps my brain was so melted by it that I didn't realise it was more than one. There were a lot of chills occupying my brain XD
👍🏼👏🏻
During the height of the Cold War O'Hare airport near Chicago where I live was targeted with seven nuclear warheads. That excludes the ones that would fall on the city itself.
Why would you need so many on an airport. First off maybe one of your nuclear bombs wouldn't hit so you target two to the airport proper then you ring the airport with nuclear explosions to knock down any airplanes that are circling the airport waiting to land and those that have taken off.
I’ve watched loads of horror movies. Yet this is the only movie that genuinely scared the shit out of me.
Sooooo true
Threads is in my top 5 all time favourite films. I was shown it in middle school sometime in the late 80s (so I'd have been about 9 to 11 years old), and I think for a long time I'd forgotten it, then started to re-remember it as a nightmare I couldn't quite put my hands on, until finally I started seeing photos and clips from it a couple of years ago, and realised it was a real film I had actually seen.
I was about to make some glib comment about "Yeah, they showed it to us in school coz in the 80s they didn't wrap us kids up in cotton wool - they just gave it to us straight and we just dealt with it". But on reflection... Seeing something horrific, burying the memory for years as if it's a nightmare, then only finally dealing with it decades later...
...That's a trauma response, isn't it?
It’s a masterpiece.
I remember that scene with the bureaucrats trapped in the bomb shelter, desperately trying to keep control and order over telephone calls, thinking like who above ground would even listen to these guys anymore. They would have no idea what’s really going on and all their use is dependent on someone bothering to answer a phone on the other line
Yes, the movie did quite a a good job in some of those phone calls and interactions to depict their ever-weakening authority over anybody.
It's hard for me to pinpoint the most horrifying part of this film, but the most helpless I felt was when the basement workers were found dead. Despite all the planning and organising, they became powerless as soon as the first bomb fell. It really goes to show how quickly society would fall apart, even in the most optimistic of outcomes post-nuclear war
It’s one of those films where the more you think about it the worse it gets, the baby at the end just to me sets in concrete there is no hope for humanity anymore.
When I was in junior school, we were all made to sit round a TV and watch a video recording of Threads. Scared me for life. I was convinced I'd be dead via nuclear war before I turned 20. And now we get to the present-day shenanigans.
Watched it in 1989 at school and I had nightmares for several weeks after, it's the scariest film I've ever watched, and now it still sometimes pops up in my memory. It stays with you forever. I think it would really shock a lot of today's children because they haven't grown up with the threat as such.
Well... they will apparently.
“Strange game, the only winning move is not to play” - WarGames
The younglings often seem to think that if there is a nuclear apocalypse it'll be "cool", just like Fallout or some other video game. But as a kid in the 80s I knew better.
And I wouldn't want it to be like Fallout, either.
I think another element contributes to the horror in the Public Broadcast is the fact that it tells very little about surviving skills, instead it uses a significant portion to teach people how to dispose bodies. It surely implies that in a case of total nuclear war, the odds of surviving is marginal. All preparation to it will be in vain and death is inevitable.
All you need is Duct Tape. It will save your life.
There’s a book series by Harry Turtledove called Timeline 191. Toward the end of the series, they start chucking nukes around, and he goes into graphic detail for the aftermath of one of the first ones.
One of the descriptions that still sticks with me is a man who has literally one half of his face burned to the bone, even melting his eye, and he’s still talking to a medic trying to treat him.
I watched this film yesterday. I could never watch it again. The scariest part for me was that every second of it was entirely believable.
Apart from BHS etrc still existing lol x
It really brings home the truth of the phrase, “The living will envy the dead.”
This is the only time I actually cried in a film. It was legitimately seeing children and pets affected by it was what made it so heartbreaking
Threads is a true horror / cultural masterpiece. Everything about it feels real. The fact that it isn’t set in some foreign land or famous city such as london or New York but a glib grey Sheffield in the north of England adds to the tension that is building within it.
I first caught it when it was re run on the bbc in 2003 not knowing what it was about, I was 16 then and suitably horrified by it.
It’s a film that has stuck with me ever since and I rewatch from time to time. I think it should be shown to work leaders upon entering high office.
Ahh Threads. My introduction to the concept of nukes, screened in my year 10 social studies class without any preamble from our teacher. Utterly traumatizing.
during my national service ( drafting is still a thing in my country) we had a training course called radiobiochemical training, i still remember the trainer telling us about the " radio" part " those evaporated in the initial attack will be the lucky ones.." 😏
DAMN that is DARK man :(
You're in Greece, right? My stepbrother is Greek and he told me the same happened to him when he did his national service!
@@marigoldbells9581 yap from Athens 🙂 in general Greek NCOs have a very dark sense of humour for example dog tags are nicknamed '' ΤΑΠ " that stands for corpse identification tag 😏
"The living will envy the dead"
I’ve had this discussion with my husband. If it was to happen, we would want to be obliterated in the initial blast. Considering the alternatives, a post nuclear world isn’t one we’d want to live in…
The fear of nuclear war was so provalent at the time that this movie was shown to my year five primary school class. To "educate" us on what could happen.
Threads is legitimately one of my favorite films, probably ever.
It's just so realistic.
What's more interesting in my mind is how would unaffected countries and its citizens would fair after a nuclear war? They don't suffer from the nuclear blasts, but radiation screwing over the atmosphere would still be an issue for everyone.
This is the most disturbing and horrifying movie ever
I'm so happy you reviewed this. I've seen some of the most fucked up movies ever made but this is the one film that literally gave me minor PTSD. When I first watched it I remember images of that movie being literally stuck in my mind for weeks afterwards.
I can still see some of those images, nearly forty years later. The last scene in particular, stuck in my mind. Only watched it once, as a teenager at the time, and it made a huge impression.
@@dexine4723 That movie ruined Johnny B Goode for me lol.
Yup the same thing happened to me, I think the PTSD happened because you’ve never seen anything like it
Once really was more than enough.
I like how this guy tackles non horror movies. The most terrifying movies are not horror, it's a natural horror they create. Like a really visceral romantic comedy that stresses the intense awkwardness for an incel trying to find love, that could be more "intense" than the Terrifier.
Many people don't understand what war looks like, which is why films like this are so incredibly important. They show just how ugly the world can become.
Although I've heard that Nuclear Winter Theory may not be completely true, it still doesn't change anything.
People simply wouldn't live very long without supply chains, running water, or electricity. Millions would still die from radiation sickness, and millions more would migrate to the countryside in search of food.
Even countries in the Southern Hemisphere that wouldn't be affected by nuclear bombs could run out of the necessary fuel to continue their industrial farming output.
The threat would still be very devastating, with or without plummeting temperatures
This movie sent me into a solid week or two of acute depression but I’m glad I watched it because it really opens your eyes. Even more chilling than the nuclear explosions themselves is the post Nuclear War portion of the movie. It’s absolutely unnerving seeing how quickly society and morals crumble once the modern infrastructure folds. Once access to food , water , shelter ,
Medical attention, etc etc. goes ; people really do revert back to this primal like state. Putting that state against a backdrop of a post nuclear war society makes the latter half of the film feel like some twisted modern version of the Middle Ages. Everyone acts like cavemen but combined with some of the scraps left from modern society you get to see how power, authority , and politics play out in such a scenario , one where your worth as a human is only as much as you can contribute to combatting the struggle for daily survival.
Entire World is just three meals away from the Stone Age.
I’m quite a big horror fan, so I’m no stranger to films designed to scare, shock and frighten. I have to say, watching Threads shook me to my core. It is precisely the possibility of that scenario which is utterly terrifying.
I remember seeing it when it was first broadcast. It was genuinely gruesome. A chilling masterpiece and a wake up call for many
I saw "Threads" on PBS in 1985. I was 13. I saw it again a year or two ago. "Threads" is the scariest and most disturbing movie I have ever seen. It is so grounded and the characters seem so realistic. A viewer cares about those characters.
"Threads" seemed that much more powerful because of its detached documentary approach. It was a nature documentary from Hell. Unrelenting.
I saw this film shortly after it first aired, along with The Day After it was the catalyst for me joining the Australian branch of the CND. What this movie also does so well in the first half is make the build up to the bomb dropping incredibly believable for the geo political situation of the time period. I don't think there is a single thing that is shown or mentioned that could not have realistically happened back in 1984, and that just adds so much extra realism to the film.
The ironic thing is nuclear weapons and MAD most likely prevented the Cold War from ever going hot, with the resulting war between NATO and the Soviets that would have cost hundreds of millions of lives.
There used to be a war in Europe every few years prior to the discovery of the Atomic bomb, whereas almost 80 years passed between the last war in Europe and the current one.
If the movie was realistic and disturbing, why didn't UK television ban people under 18 from watching it?
@@stevepalpatine2828 We had a war in the Balkans in the 90's? But sure i guess that's 80 years ago now...
@@julian2626 Yeah but it was a Civil War, there was also the brief flare ups of chaos that accompanied the fall of the USSR, but theres been no war between countries from 1945 until the Russians invaded Ukraine this year.
@@stevepalpatine2828 I wonder why NATO got involved if it was a civil war?
We watched this in school during the early 90s. It was shown in 3 parts for some reason which we watched over the course of a few weeks. We got yelled at to be quiet when the woman in the town centre pissed herself because the entire class erupted into laughter. One of my lasting memories of this which I found really haunting for reasons that I can’t explain, is the elderly lady watching the educational video and kind of talking/chanting along with the words. It was about animal skeletons if I recall.
I kind of want to find it and watch it again but I also kind of don’t, considering how close we are to the apocalypse right now…
This makes the Fallout games look like a cartoon.
To be fair, the fallout games are set many years after the fallout has diminished
Threads is the ultimate Film for Misanthropists. Humanity should not do the grave mistake to push its luck and that of the world too far. 💀
Think it's shocking watching it now, just imagine growing up with this as a realistic prospect 😮
It’s terrifying
7:04 those eyes… that single frame has haunted me since the day I saw it and I fear it will for as long as I live
I watched this in school and I remember it scared the shit outta me I think I fainted as I ended up in the nurses room waiting on my mum to come and take me home as I was crying and shaking then I watched it last year on here and it’s still so scary this needs to be shown in schools and on tv their is NO winners in a nuclear war also what annoyed me was we never found out what happened to Jimmy and his sister guess they got killed
At the tennis court scene with the traffic warden you can see Jimmy’s sister
Jimmy is in the hospital cubicle. at the end of the film
his daughter comes in to give birth
@@grahamfisher5436 bloody hell you’re right
@@georgecoster4476
MAKES IT 10000000000 TIMES MORE
F@*KING HORRIFIC
WHEN YOU REALISE ÌT.
JMMY NEVR MET HIS DAUGHTER, LET ALONE HIS GRANDDAUGHTER.
THE COMPLETELY SEPARATION, BREAKDOWN AND DISTROUCTION OF SOCIETY.
And Now George.
you can really understand why the film is called -
T H R E A D S
the film starts with all community/ families together , then are instantly whittled down to just a few, it always. focused on Ruth, to make the final - "Family in the same room" scene ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING
(that is! when you "know" the man in the next cubical is actually Jimmy). it makes you realise just what thin THREADS we are connected to one another.
more so ... how easy we can be devided...
HORRIFIC...
hope you and yours are well
May sense and sensibility lead and prevail
ps.. I was in Sheffield, age 15, when it was 1st aired on TV..
TERRIFYING.
PEACE ✌☮
@@georgecoster4476 her paper round bag is outside by the gate
It kinda feels to me this movie was influenced by Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen) which is a manga written by Keiji Nakazawa who is a hibakusha himself. He survived the blast in Hiroshima. Later on it was made into an anime movie. I highly recommend both the manga and the anime movie to everyone in 2023 because we cannot forget what happened. History might repeat itself and it wont be pretty.
While there are many great scenes, one that seems to be overlooked is the one from the museum.
You know things will get worse and it's inevitable when people move all the art to a safe location, in the hopes of trying to preserve it. It's a bone chilling scene. You just now they wouldn't bother with such things unless the danger is real. The implications seem so real and upsetting.
"This is it, it's happening, prepare for the worst"
It's hard to find the right words to describe this film. Unflinching is an understatement. Nothing portrayed except harsh reality...no comfort, no hope. It's a nightmare captured on film.
I think Ruth’s grandchild if it was alive would be like one of the mutants in the movie The hills have eyes as they were severely effected by radiation
The hills have eyes took place before the nuclear war in threads
Never heard of this film before, thanks. I only knew about the US's "The Day After".
The Exorcist frightened me as a child
Threads terrified me as an adult
There's nothing like it and sadly there never will be. I would love a modern fly-on-the-wall version of Threads. Won't happen. Hines & Co truly found lightning in a bottle with this production.
Note: there were NO jump scares in this film. Horror laid upon horror.
The layering of horrors is what does it.
I’ve seen some terrifying movies in my life but Threads absolutely scared the shit out of me. I was literally mortified throughout most of the second half
FAR too real
Here in the States our film was The Day After, gave me nuclear nightmares for years. This is the first I've heard of this film, looks far more raw, would definitely like to check it out.
I saw The Day After for the first time just 2 years ago during the first major lockdown. Thought that was super intense. But after watching this for the first time only yesterday, The Day After may as well be an episode of the Teletubbies compared to this.
The Day After was a Disney film by comparison to Threads.
If "The Day After" is a slap on the wrist, "Threads" is a punch to the throat.
This is definitely a horror movie. It's got: Gore, birth twice, body horror just to name a few.
I highly recommend seeking out the work print of the Day After on the online archives. It lacks some of the touches of the version that aired but it’s worth it to see the almost 1 hour of deleted scenes. It really pushes the movie near Threads in terms of shows the sheer terror of a nuclear war.
When they finally get to the underground city workers they are just lying dead at their desks. Such a great movie, Watched again last night.