SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Scott LeBrun The year after the U.S.A. aired 'The Day After', England followed suit with this BBC movie that details the chilling after-effects of a nuclear strike.America and Russia get locked into an escalating battle that ends with a series of nuclear attacks, and the working-class English city of Sheffield is one of those burgs that are victimized. The story is personalized by focusing on a young couple, Jimmy (Reece Dinsdale) and Ruth (Karen Meagher), who are expecting a child and decide to get married. But they are never able to realize their plans."Sobering" doesn't begin to describe 'Threads'. It's one of the most gut-punching, honest, believable, and gloomy tales to touch upon the subject of living in a post-holocaust world. In the hands of writer Barry Hines and producer / director Mick Jackson (who went on to make Hollywood movies such as "Volcano" and "The Bodyguard"), there is no room for melodrama here. Everything is played in a strict matter-of-fact fashion. And the devastation that we witness here makes for an interesting sort of entertainment. One doesn't really "enjoy" it, but it's as fascinating as it is bleak. Part of the impact comes from a documentary-style approach, with a narrator (Paul Vaughan) who is heard on a fairly regular basis. We see many victims struggling mightily to survive, and doing whatever they have to do. We are also shown the efforts of emergency personnel to deal with this untenable situation, and given all pertinent scientific facts (giving 'Threads' a bit of an edge over 'The Day After').Ruth remains a focal point as we are taken on this sombre journey. The movie is also a real triumph in production design, atmosphere, and gritty cinematography. It doesn't go overboard in covering actors in grotesque makeup in order to make its point; here, a little goes a long, long way.'Threads' is the kind of experience that doesn't leave one unaffected.10 out of 10.

columbusbuck Once again, I struggled to understand the British English. At least this time, I didn't really need to. Not a word needed to be spoken to convey the very real horror we might all be subjected to. Now, closer to that armageddon than ever before in our history. I just hope I die in the initial blast. The after is actually worse than the blast itself. God help us all.

nekosensei Having lived through both the initial cold war era of "Dr. Strangelove," "Fail Safe" and "On The Beach" and the Reagan-inspired panic that produced "The Day After," "Testament" and "Threads," and having watched them all in the sociopolitical context in which they were made, I'd say "Threads" is the only one worth watching now in terms of what it has to offer on the subject of nuclear war. Kubrick's pop art masterpiece is still the go-to classic for purposes of entertainment and cinematic appreciation, but this is the film that will graphically illustrate to you what the actual sight of a mushroom cloud going off in your vicinity will do to you (you'll pee your pants) and what the actual effects will be on you and your community (hint: it will NOT provide opportunities for tour de force performances by Jason Robards, Jane Alexander or Peter Sellers.) I went back and watched this again after seeing some vintage British documentaries and PSAs about civil defense during nuclear war on Youtube (particularly the eerie "Protect And Survive" TV spots with their scary little jingle, which are used with frightening effect in this film.) The film's scriptwriter Barry Hines is clearly pointing out what a steaming load the public has been given about the survivability of nuclear war. Without the grand dramatic gestures of the other epics mentioned above, this modest film demonstrates with much more dramatic power how unfathomably inhuman the people at the top are to subject their fellow human beings to this ultimate in sadistic threats.One other thing that I think makes this film more effective than the others mentioned above and more worth watching is its universal dimension, applicable not only to the nuclear scenario but to modern warfare in general with its monstrous emphasis on mass destruction. Hines was speaking to a British audience to which the horrors of the Blitzkrieg were still vivid living memories, and this film, even with its frugal Thatcher-era BBC special effects budget, succeeds in making you feel the trauma of being trapped in a landscape reduced to chunks of concrete and rotting corpses, where survival means literally living like a rat. See it, and the next time you hear someone saying we should bomb the daylights out of this or that country, you might point out to them that bombing a civilian population entails crimes against humanity that they might want to think twice about involving themselves in, even on a purely moral level.The film is introduced with footage of a spider spinning silk from its abdomen, while a narrator compares the structure of human civilization to the interconnected threads of a spider's web. We then see the finished web. It's a pretty thing, but from our perspective fragile. Also a trap.

aequus314 Mick Jackson's BBC docu-drama opens with one implicit warning:"In an urban society, everything connects. Each person's needs are fed by the skills of many others.Our lives are woven together in a fabric, but the connections that make society strong also make it vulnerable."His warning concludes with a fragile strand of spider silk and fades into a fully woven, menacing orb of spider web.I saw this post-nuclear apocalypse film on the force of Guardian's recommendation for scariest horror films. But I don't consider it the scariest horror I've seen for two reasons: Threads is not really horror by formalistic standards as it can't be qualified by the usual sub-genres (slasher, supernatural, psychological to name a few). Second, it didn't induce a sense of mounting dread (so keenly attempted by most horror movies) in all 112 minutes of running time.Yet it gave me a nightmare the same night I was done watching.So what's the big deal? There are tonnes of shows (about wars, nuclear disasters, end-of-the-world) trying to frighten us with gruesome make-up and special effects anyway: Pearl Harbor, The Hills Have Eyes, Children of Men… Well it is here that the film's choice of fictional news footage and anti-aesthetic photography by Andrew Dunn and Paul Morris deserve mention. Amplified by the context of nuclear radiation in a densely populated urban centre, human disfigurement occurring in the thick of those post-disaster scenes were absolutely disturbing to witness.I haven't seen imageries this persistent and lasting since defective humans and severed limbs in movies by Jodorowsky. The video's grainy resolution — likely the result of analogue format on Super VHS back in the 1980s — adds to the tone of cinéma vérité very well. Overall effect is creepy like a scratchy washed-out video in Hideo Nakata's Ringu, combined with the haunting cruelty in war photos captured by James Natchwey.Screenwriter Barry Hines hypothesizes the fate of people living in Sheffield when the Soviet Union detonates a warhead above the North Sea. I will not delve into details with a blow-by-blow account of the fictional brinkmanship in Threads, but essentially, a failed US- led coup in Iran escalates into armed confrontation with the Soviet Union. This crisis culminates in nuclear attacks on NATO bases throughout the region, with the city of Sheffield being one of several targets.Three narrative viewpoints drive the film: documentary aspects are narrated by an omniscient man whom earlier, had warned us of the vulnerability in a system held by connections that interlock too closely. He explains in chronological sequence: how early days of the crisis lead to the melt down of society's economic, social, medical and environmental conditions. And finally, the ultimate collapse of humanity itself. Dramatic arcs are painted through the story of young lovers, Ruth Beckett and Jimmy Kemps. An unplanned pregnancy introduces their respective families (the Becketts and the Kemps) in the mix, effectively setting up these ordinary characters as victims who will suffer for generations to come, acutely and chronically, the full blown effects of this event when nuclear radiation rises and peaks after 3000 megatons of TNT. Another viewpoint follows a small group of council members in Sheffield's Emergency Operations Team.All three units engineer in full force; a scientifically eloquent, nightmarish and realistic narrative of total devastation caused by a nuclear holocaust.Threads may be a faux-documentary but still, it makes for a terrifying watch. Miles ahead of fly-by-night Hollywood disaster flicks, this is a deeply intense social realist drama anchored in credible visual tone and political language. Don't let the fact that it was made back in 1984 fool you into thinking otherwise. Not for the squirmish or faint-hearted.cinemainterruptus.wordpress.com