Just rewatched Threads, the most hellish and heavy movie ever made.

[Forkboy]

It's a British movie made back in 1983 dealing with nuclear war. Here in the U.S. we had the movie The Day After, and trust me when I tell you that Threads makes that look like a feel good Disney movie.

The night I originally saw this was with a friend back in '84. We always rented movies, smoked a bong, and generally had a great time, and this night started the same way as always. We went in to this movie in great moods, laughing and joking and being our usual clowns. By the end both of us had no words. I got up and told him I'd talk to him tomorrow and walked out. I went home and couldn't sleep, couldn't get the images out of my head. When I did fall asleep I had nightmares for nights afterwards. Since this movie, no other movie has ever scared me, because after this nothing even comes close. Monsters, slashers...child play compared to this flick.

Not a date movie, and not a movie you're going to come out of unchanged. Almost 30 years later the movie packs a punch, and will stick with you for a long time.

Full movie here:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2023790698427111488#

[sarge43]

1. Yup. That one didn't pull any punches.

I think it came close to a reality I don't even want to think about.

[Forkboy]

2. I'm just going to sit in the corner and drink a bottle of Scotch.

:)

[LeftyFingerPop]

3. I found this movie a few months ago...

and you are correct...it is very upsetting, and it stays with you. Much more realistic than The Day After.

[Forkboy]

5. The Day After plays out like an old Irwin Allen disaster movie.

Threads really hammers the whole thing home. Some of the short, quick images they show got me then, and got me this time as well.

Tough movie to watch, which is why it's so good and worth watching. :)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Another British production dealing with nuclear war

is The War Game, made in the early 1960s. Despite the primitive quality of the special effects, it's still deeply disturbing, as it deals with the plight of the survivors.

[Forkboy]

6. I haven't even heard of that one.

But I found it...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2864871032688882557#

I'm going to check out after the Bruins game or sometime tomorrow. I'll let you what I think.

Thanks for the recommendation!

[GCP]

7. I saw 'War Games' as a student in 1968

God, it was the most shocking thing ever, and I still think it's the best movie about nuclear war ever made.

[Forkboy]

16. Ok, I just got done watching it...

And I can only imagine the punch that must have delivered in 1965. This is clearly the genesis for Threads, without a doubt.

One thing I note is that they hadn't thought of nuclear winter yet, an idea that was in Threads (Carl Sagan was an adviser for the movie, so that explains that). There was also no talk of fallout itself, another factor that just wasn't known at the time.

That was an excellent film. At 46 minutes it was almost too short, but with a topic that heavy maybe that's for the best. :scared:

Thanks again for recommending that. I liked it a lot, and was very surprised at how direct it was for it's time (and even for now, for that matter). I can see why they didn't air it again for almost 20 years. Doesn't exactly fit with the Government's idea of a Cold War morale boost, I'm sure.

[WolverineDG]

8. I had nightmares after watching it

:scared:

dg

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. I just read a synopsis of it on Wikipedia

and even just that could be enough for a nightmare or two. Think I'll pass on the film. :scared:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Sounds much grimmer than The War Game

which was grim enough in itself, since it looks like newsreel footage.

[rockymountaindem]

11. I think the societal implications are more troubling than the imagery

Like, even the scene where that person just melted or the one where they were operating on all the victims without anesthesia didn't phase me. I'm always immune to movie violence (well, almost always) because I never really "suspend disbelief". But, the idea that things like language wouldn't be able to be transmitted to another generation, or the fact that people would have to subsist completely without communication or technology of any kind... that was hard to watch. Also the idea that society would eventually fragment instead of band together to face adversity was disappointing. Definitely a lot of grist for the thought mill.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. A slightly more optimisic --and much older post-nuclear story is the novel

Alas, Babylon from about 1959.

It takes place in a small town in Florida that is cut off from the world and reduced to a subsistence level after the nearby cities and military bases are nuked. This is an old-fashioned small town, where everyone knows everyone else, so there is no decent into barbarism, but the people's physical survival is in question at times. The social attitudes can be a bit retro for contemporary tastes, but it's still a good read.

[rockymountaindem]

13. I thought the end of Threads

wherein the next generation of children born after the attack are essentially mindless savages was the worst part. I mean, you expect the piles of dead bodies and rioting and stuff, but I didn't think they would be unable to speak properly after 10 years, etc. I think it wasn't the destruction of society but the regression of the mind that was strange. At the end of Threads where the post-bomb girl delivers a baby in front of two older adults who don't care one bit (although the nurse can still speak, as older people could), that was jarring. You would think people would want to care for the next generation, but I guess things appeared so grim it would just be pointless.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. That part of it may have come from events and ideas that were current at the time:

1) The publication of Colin Turnbull's The Mountain People, an account of the Ik tribe of Uganda, which regressed to a state of selfish cruelty under severe stress.

2) The discovery of "Genie," a young girl who had been kept locked in a closet for the first 13 years of her life and who never learned to speak properly.

The lack of language may be exaggerated, since that kind of disruption occurs mostly in children who have been completely isolated.

If humans are together, they devise a way to communicate. There was a fascinating case in the 1980s in Nicaragua, when the Sandinistas decided to found the nation's first school for the deaf, who had never been educated before.

All these previously isolated children from all over Nicaragua came together and the teachers soon noticed that they were developing a complex sign language. Some American researchers in ASL went down to Nicaragua and documented the emergence of this brand new form of sign language. It took only a few years for the children to develop a full-featured system of communication.

[mitchum]

14. Another recommendation for Alas, Babylon

As a cold war kid, I devoured that genre of nuclear destruction novels; Alas, Babylon was one of the best

[Paladin]

17. "Alas, Babylon" Rocks. A True Classic.

Great ending.......

[SidneyCarton]

18. Just read the synopsis on Wiki, damn.

I'm struck without even having to watch it. It's not the imagery, as awful and unflinching as it would be. It's not the carnage, which is muted by today's standards. It's the relentless hopelessness that grabs you and won't let go. The firm and undoubtable witness that you are watching THE END of man, and it is awful to behold.

Kudos FB, you'll forgive me if I decline to watch it, I have enough trouble sleeping as is.

[Forkboy]

21. It's about as bleak as it gets.

Normally, when someone says they won't even watch a movie it bothers me, but this one is of such a nature that I can't get upset at anyone for not choosing to put themselves through it. It's a tough watch, and there's no chance of being in a good mood after watching it. I thought that maybe it would have lost it's impact on me after so long, but it didn't. I've been thinking about it since I watched it yesterday.

Peace

[Inchworm]

19. I remember a Dr Who episode where The Doc went 100 gazillion years forward in time

The first thing you see there was savages hunting a human(oid).

I thought to myself.. :wtf:

Then I thought about these type of documentaries...

It could happen.



:hi:

[Forkboy]

23. We're all going to become Morlocks.

:)

[KamaAina]

20. Same genre, same year: Testament

with Jane Alexander. Here San Francisco gets nuked. The rest is set in a small town in the North Bay as society collpases slowly and people begin to die from radiation poisoning. :scared:

Come to think of it, that may also have been the year I became irrationally convinced during one of my overnight college radio broadcasts that the AP teletype machine was going to go off during my airshift, and I would be the one to have to announce the end of the world to all (or both) music-loving insomniacs in greater New Haven.

edit: header

[Forkboy]

22. I've seen that. It's a good one.

Jane Alexander was really good in that. I haven't seen that one in years.