MovieChat Forums > Epic and Disaster > Nuclear war movies, The Day After, Threa...

Nuclear war movies, The Day After, Threads...


Everybody talks about Threads, a lot of people talk about The Day After...that's all well and good but I think other related movies are overlooked too much, like Control, that was another movie from the 80s, and it had Burt Lancaster and Ben Gazarra in it, now it didn't deal with the aftermath of nuclear holocaust, it had 15 people conducting an experiment of living in a fallout shelter for a month, and near the end of the month it's revealed that the real thing is about to happen.

Granted, for the action the movie has a slow build up because most of it is spent exploring what all these people are about, and what happens when they're in an enclosed space with each other and only each other. However, that is an important part of these kinds of movies, getting to know the characters, and seeing that they're as individual, and at the same time, as common and plain and ordinary as any one of us, so some of them we can relate to. But then, word gets out the bomb's going to drop, and they've got people pounding on the door begging to be let in, and the shelter's only built for 15 people so it becomes a matter of do they save themselves and sacrifice everyone else? or do they let the people in and face the consequences of it? That was a great movie in my opinion, it deserves better recognition than it gets. Has anybody else seen it?

reply

Wow, novastar, did you really have to go and spoil the ending of the movie like that, without any warning?



You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

reply

For another small movie about a nuclear holocaust, see Testament from 1983. It focuses on the effects of the aftermath on a small community and specifically on Jane Alexander trying to hold her family together in the midst of the tragedy. She's outstanding, and the movie is quite moving. Kevin Costner has an early, small role in the cast.

"The answers to all of life's riddles can be found in the movies."

reply

Check out "On the Beach".

"I would have been your daddy but the dog beat me over the fence!"-Sgt Johnson.

reply

Fail-Safe also....

It is not our abilities that show who we truly are...it is our choices

reply

Threads is probably my favorite of this genre (I vaguely remember Testament or much of The Day After.)

SPOILERS

I like threads so much because: 1) for the most part the cast is likeable and interesting and you care what happens to them; 2) it covers the buildup, the actual attack, and an extended aftermath in a realistic manner (or as realistically as possible considering what happens during an actual atomic explosion); 3) although there's heroism after the attack, there's also plenty of selfishness, but there's mostly total chaos and confusion in this new reality.

The only thing I didn't like is how in less than one generation language usage had disintegrated. Come on, it took thousands of years to develop English (for example), it's not going to be lost in 15 years. A minor but very irritating point. But the efforts to develop some new kind of society (very midaeval) and the collapse of civilization were very well done.

reply

The Original not the remake
In a world where a carpenter can be resurrected,anything is possible






reply


I thought the aforementioned Testamant was more powerful than The Day After, which came out at about the same time.

Panic in Year Zero was an early '60s movie starring Ray Milland in which a vacationing family tries to survive in the wildness after a nuclear explosion.

The Road Warrior is set in an apolocylptic post-nuclear society.

NBC had the mini-series World War III in which Rock Hudson was the president.

Dr. Strangelove showed the dangers of fluoridation robbing Gen. Jack D. Ripper of his Precious Bodily Fluids.

reply

I didn't give away anymore than the back of the box does. Trust me, you don't know the whole story until you see Control.

reply