Threads (1984) (TV)

Director:

Mick Jackson

Writer:

Barry Hines (writer)

Release Date:

23 September 1984 (UK)

Genre:

Drama | Sci-Fi | War

Plot:

Documentary style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England; and the eventual long run affects of nuclear war on civilization.

Plot Keywords:

Nuclear | Nuclear Holocaust | Nuclear War | Birth | Cigarette Smoking

Awards:

4 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Karen Meagher	...	Ruth Beckett
Reece Dinsdale	...	Jimmy Kemp
David Brierly	...	Mr. Kemp (as David Brierley)
Rita May	...	Mrs. Kemp
Nicholas Lane	...	Michael Kemp
Jane Hazlegrove	...	Alison Kemp
Henry Moxon	...	Mr. Beckett
June Broughton	...	Mrs. Beckett
Sylvia Stoker	...	Granny Beckett
Harry Beety	...	Clive Sutton
Ruth Holden	...	Marjorie Sutton
Ashley Barker	...	Bob
Michael O'Hagan	...	Chief Supt. Hirst
Phil Rose	...	Medical Officer
Steve Halliwell	...	Information Officer

Runtime:

Brazil:110 min

Country:

UK | Australia | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M (video rating) | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Buxton, Derbyshire, England, UK

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

Findings from the 1980 British Government exercise "Square Leg" were used as the basis for projecting the level of destruction and number of casualties in the movie. "Square Leg" was a government project that estimated what would happen in Britain in the event of an actual attack. It projected the mortality rate at 29 million, serious injuries at 7 million and short term survivors at 19 million.

Goofs:

Continuity: The title of the first scene says the date is March 5. Later in that same scene, the radio announces the date is March 20.

Quotes:

[as Jimmy & Bob are arguing with several men about selling wood, the air-raid siren begins to sound - a low, steady wail that continues to get louder]
Jimmy Kemp: Come on quick! Get DOWN!
[dives under the truck with Bob]
Jimmy Kemp: [Panic begins to break out in the square as people desperately try to find cover before the warheads hit]

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Screenwipe: (#2.3)" (2006)

An ever-lasting impact!!

I remember seeing this film when was I was a small schoolboy in England when it was first on the TV in 1985. Although I only saw snatches of the film, it's images and horror have remained with me to this day. This has to be the most visually shocking and emotionally impacting film that I have ever seen. It terrified the life out of me when I was a kid and I became convinced that this was actually going to happen at any time, I thought this was reality, not a film! For years I used to jump under the bed at the sound of an airplane! The most shocking thing was seeing the things you are so familiar with falling apart and seeing the threads of the order of society fall apart so easily. Some of the images were so strange, one that sticks in my mind is seeing a traffic-warden with a machine gun shooting starving survivors. To a small boy the thought that traffic wardens were going to become machine gun toting monsters was more scary than all the horror movies in the world! The image of a giant mushroom cloud rising over Sheffield and the woman who dropped her ice cream into a rapidly forming puddle of her own urine as a result. The horrible birth scene at the end. Diseased survivors fighting for dead sheep. How nice that the politicians would be nicely tucked up in their bunkers whilst we poor pawns would be left up here to face all that.

I breathed quite a large sigh of relief when the Soviet Union collapsed! Let's just hope that humans have finally realised the power of their own destructive force and we will never have to face this becoming a reality. It's fifteen years since I saw the film and have never been able to track it down or find out much about it, most people I speak to have never heard of it, for a while I thought I must have imagined that it ever existed. I was quite relieved to find other people who had seen it on this web site! It is such a shame that it is such an unknown film, it has got to be one of the most powerful anti-war films ever made, and all on a cheap BBC budget, take that Hollywood! I just wish I could see it again to see if it is as shocking as I remember, and judging by the other user comments here, it is.