I mean, yall talk about Threads in the same breath as Martyrs or something. Threads, it would seem, was just a low budget TV movie from the 80s. Does it depict some awful situations? Sure, but I feel like one day someone just decided to call it the most depressing or most disturbing movie and everyone just went with it because they wanted to appeal intellectual and cultured too.
shareYou've got three nuclear war movies, all of which came out in 1983-84.
All of them are disturbing. "Threads" would be the most disturbing because, more so than the others, it explores what would happen to humanity years after a nuclear war.
It does not paint a pretty picture for sure.
However, one wouldn't say "This is the most depressing/disturbing movie I've ever seen!"
What keeps THREADS head and shoulders above Day After and Testament is that it has the documentary-like approach and no big stars in it. It feels very real and is so well-written that there aren't any scenes or lines which feel "false" or "hollow".
It's full of so many great touches like the guy trying to start the truck (and it not working) or the woman urinating herself when she sees the mushroom cloud. Despite the film having an extremely low budget, it feels all the more authentic, as though it's an actual window into a dystopian parallel universe.
It also helps that it's all British people with their resolute stiff upper lip going about their business. They go from prim and proper to scurrying panicking insects in a blink of an eye and it's a shock to see. They seem to have a natural knack for acting in a way too that doesn't draw a lot of attention to itself or coming off as saccharine or overplayed.
Yeah, Im not sure where you are going here.
The lead up to nuclear war and the bombing itself was far superior in "The Day After".
Comparatively speaking, "THreads" looked like it cost 12 cents to make. WHich maybe it did as you correctly stated - no stars.
"Testament" - I barely remember. I think it focused more on how nukes affected one particular family.
Over all though, yeah, I liked "Threads" the best because of the totality of it. As I said, it got into where humans would be - I think it went 15 years into the future (after nukes). Bleak indeed. ANd probably accurate. Fortunately, we never found out.
The day after resembles an Irwin Allen movie. It has a bigger budget but it’s also more hopeful and kinda overdone in a typical cheesy American way.
shareYeah, maybe so. It was relevant for it's time.
"It has a bigger budget but it’s also more hopeful and kinda overdone in a typical cheesy American way. "
Cheesy AMerican way? - Eehh, I wouldn't say that - "The Day After" was important for it's time. The special effects, at that point, were fine. It wasn't cheesy at all. Nuclear war between us and the SOviets was a big concern in the 1980s. However, lets not overstate it's relevance. Some think the reason we avoided nuclear was because of films like "The Day After" and "Threads". Yeah, well I doubt that. Let's all just thank our lucky stars cooler heads prevailed during The Cold War.
Hopeful? - I think you don't quite remember "The Day After" - it was anything but hopeful. If anything - it tried to convey the hopelessness of surviving a nuclear war.
Day after maybe important for it’s time; but does not hold up at all
I don’t think YOU quite remember the day after. It is cheesy and overdone. It implies that humanity can survive a nuclear war.
The bombing scene in Threads is more effective at depicting the confusion and initial mass chaos of the bomb. People are running around in pure panic trying to find their loved ones, before being burned to death. The raw and brutal shock and terror at what they were witnessing. It is so much grittier and more real. Day after ruins it with all the dated images of people being “vaporized” into skeletons and tinting the screen red, it looks like something from Flash Gordon. Day after also doesn’t delve into people being murdered and raped for their belongings. Threads goes the extra mile by showing what would happen as humanity slowly withers away into nothing.
The build up in Threads is also better. Day after pretty much jumps right into the conflict, but with threads there is a long, slow, agonizing approach where people subconsciously know the worst is about to happen. It shows the emergency powers taken by the government and delves into how exactly society would fall apart, unlike TDA.
TDA still has people surviving and banding together, in Threads EVRERYONE DIES a horrible death. Day after ends with Steve Guttenberg smiling at his hair loss…. Threads ends with a dead baby and the extinction of the human race. No comparison. Threads is about the death of hope. The Day after tried to give hope, because Americans need saccharine cheese to help the medicine go down. British people understood what actually being bombed by a foreign power was like, so they don’t need the extra cheese.
"It implies that humanity can survive a nuclear war. "
I think it's more towards demonstrating you'd be better off if you did not survive a nuclear war.
"The bombing scene in Threads is more effective at depicting the confusion and initial mass chaos of the bomb. People are running around in pure panic trying to find their loved ones, before being burned to death. The raw and brutal shock and terror at what they were witnessing. It is so much grittier and more real. Day after ruins it with all the dated images of people being “vaporized” into skeletons and tinting the screen red, it looks like something from Flash Gordon."
True, THE DA leans more towards everyone getting killed before they have time to react.
"Threads goes the extra mile by showing what would happen as humanity slowly withers away into nothing."
Yeah - I've said this.
"The build up in Threads is also better. Day after pretty much jumps right into the conflict, but with threads there is a long, slow, agonizing approach where people subconsciously know the worst is about to happen. It shows the emergency powers taken by the government and delves into how exactly society would fall apart, unlike TDA. "
Disagree.
"TDA still has people surviving and banding together, in Threads EVRERYONE DIES a horrible death. Day after ends with Steve Guttenberg smiling at his hair loss…"
I thought TDA ended with Jason Robards going back to his home, which had been destroyed in the attack.
Not everyone dies in THREADS - the Mother survives (Mother of the suggested horrible new born).
I don't see one bit where TDA tries to give hope. ANd as far as THREADS going further into it, I had already indicated this. Plus I said THREADS was better. I'm not really sure where you are going with this conversation.
Where we do disagree is your theory that TDA tried to give hope.
Naahhh, no chance.
Where we do disagree is your theory that TDA tried to give hope
Brother you are splitting hairs. What is the general theme of both stories? How horrible life would be for those that survived a nuclear war. Both suggest the world will go on, and will be awful.
Life will be awful. "Threads" goes a bit further into it because it goes further into the future.
There is no hope demonstrated in either movie. If anything is demonstrated - it's that you'd be better off NOT surviving nuclear war. WHich incidentally, one agrees with.
Ok that aside, I'm on for the next couple of hours while I work out. If you have anything to add, great.
A final interesting sidenote, the girl in "THreads" - the one who becomes pregnant and shrieks when shown her new born. Unfortunately, the actress that played the part, passed very young. She was in a car accident.
Ultimately I’m talking about the style of the movie. TDA is typical glossy American, Threads is grittier, more horrifying, goes further with the subject. In that matter, TDA after is at least manageable. A war hawk could come away from that movie saying “SEE, at least SOME people survived.” Threads makes it clear that no one survives, it is pure nihilism. Which is the rather big hair we are splitting here.
Even before Threads veers off decades into the future, it’s still darker than TDA. It shows the government holdout slowly suffocating to death, people in the hospitals getting their limbs amputated with no anaesthetic or medicine available. It shows a man abandoning his wife to slowly die of burns and radiation, and parents finding their son crushed to death by debris. Or the other parents bodies left to rot and be infested by flies and maggots, while the grandmother’s corpse is eaten by a dog. Nothing in TDA is remotely as dark.
Yes, but if TDA also went 15 years into the future, everyone would have been dead.
THus, like THREADS, no one would survive. TDA clearly demonstrates the nihilism (life is meaningless) you spoke of.
It doesn't go as deep because it doesn't go as far into the future.
Agreed on second paragraph, nothing to add.
The only other disagreement is which movie had a better lead into the bombings. Probably personal taste on that one - I thought TDA did a better job setting up the nuclear attack by The Russians.
I do enjoy John Lithgow’s performance, particularly “that’s a lot of bull’s eyes” and “those are ICBMs, they take about 10 minutes to reach Russia.”
shareYeah he was all right.
There was a lot of tension in TDA - building up to the moment of bombs landing.
But again, if I had to choose one or the other, I would choose THREADS. It was a better start to finish.
Ok, nice doing this point/counterpoint with you....
Best wishes
Ok quickly -
"It also helps that it's all British people with their resolute stiff upper lip going about their business. They go from prim and proper to scurrying panicking insects in a blink of an eye and it's a shock to see. They seem to have a natural knack for acting in a way too that doesn't draw a lot of attention to itself or coming off as saccharine or overplayed."
WHo wouldn't? You can apply it to any human being community on the planet. You'd have a bunch of chaos if it was felt nuclear war was close. Then if it actually happened, I think a lot of people would be pi^&%$#ing their pants.
Well of course but I think the change in attitude with British people is a little more pronounced and interesting (for me, as an American raised on a steady diet of Doctor Who, Survivors, and Blake's 7) to see. The TV series "Survivors" came a few years earlier and tackles a lot of the same ground that this movie does in a similar fashion. I love seeing British people stop and figure out how to get society up and running again after everything has been destroyed. I have a feeling things in America would be a lot more chaotic.
shareYOu know, let me get this out and then I have to go. For some reason, the radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" started a panic. On the other side though, I don't believe The Cuban Missile Crisis (which in fact is the closest humans have ever come to nuclear war) - caused chaos. I could be wrong though, one wasn't there for either situation.
ANd yes you are probably right in that it would be more chaotic in AMerica. WHy? Because we're not all on the same team. It's not like the British - in the sense everyone is British. Here, its pretty much everyone for themselves.
Ok, gotta get rolling, nice chatting with you.
Best wishes
Yes British actors were generally better at doing kitchen sink drama without the histrionics of Hollywood.
shareI did not find it as disturbing as I thought I would. Maybe it was the way it was filmed. It was very low budget and didn't jolt me the way others have.
Best thing to do is see it for yourself and make up your own mind.
I just watched it recently for the first time. I agree that part of what made it particularly disturbing was the documentary-like feel. Another thing that I noticed was that unlike in some films it never let up. There were never any scenes where there was a reprieve. It just kept getting darker and darker and darker and worse and worse and worse and you never got to come up for air. I think that added to the heaviness of it.
shareThreads is disturbing because it is actually possible and based on reality of the extinction of the human race, unlike Martyrs
shareIt's pretty realistic and very well done... Because of this it is disturbing and depressing. Compare to:
The War Game (1965) A Peter Watkins documentary style film for TV (which the BBC wouldn't show at the time).
Dead Man's Letters OR Letters from a Dead Man - Pisma Myortvogo Cheloveka (1986) a slow but unrelentingly grim nuclear nightmare that got shown on TV in the US in the wake of The Day After.
One more of interest is O-Bi-O-Ba - The End of Civilization (1985). This one is Polish and it's set inside what must have been a very well prepared shelter some years after a global nuke-out. It's all about slow starvation of a population of desperate people who are waiting for "The Ark" to come and save them... How do you rate their chances?
I watched it in 1984 and it scared the living crap out of me - just thinking about it gives me night terrors.
share