the thing that made Threads so shocking was it's complete lack of sentimentality - it showed how our humanity depends on the continuity of civilisation without which, we would quickly regress to a state of survival that is terrifying to comprehend.
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. THREADS
TDA is plenty scary and depressing too. The sounds of people screaming right before being vaporized/incinerated is haunting and visceral and sticks with you.
TDA was originally 3 hours long and a LOT of the really horrific scenes were cut. so the director could get it Televised.. to, like threads.. get the message out, about the horror of NW . I think the uncut edit, is available on blueray/ DVD.
@@grahamfisher5436 Actually, the assembly cut leaked not too long ago. Most of it consists of dailies but this is pretty much what Nicholas Meyer wanted to make but couldn't. I still think Threads is the better movie but TDA is pretty tragic in its own right.
I saw it as a 14 year old and it changed everything for me. Its quite unreal now to have all those feelings that lay dormat for so long now triggered again. Its a real harrowing watch.
Threads had came to my attention about a year ago and i gotta say, this was one of the scariest features i've ever seen in my entire life!! it makes all the horror films seem like children's films to me. thanks for sharing this!!
They need to release Threads on DVD and Blu-ray. This movie should also be shown all over the world. Particularly in Congress, governments, and the United Nations. This film is too important to just be a rare film. After watching this, when I hear other countries threatening with nukes, it scares the fucking shit out of me. Thank you for sharing this. Very well-made movie.
Aidan Lunn That's what I mean. A company in the American film industry, such as Miramax or Lion's Gate, should produce and distribute it on a region 1 DVD and Blu Ray.
TheCatfeeesh Easy fix in theory, however I'm given to understand it's quite difficult to buy a region-free DVD player over there, let alone a Euro-spec one (which would throw up all sorts of anomalies with incompatible television standards between the UK and US anyway).
I love the line "May not be suitable for children" yeah so long as the kiddywinks don't mind seeing burnt corpses and everyone dying i'm sure they'll enjoy it. Its a part of our family movie night.
Oh dont forget that pesky global temperature drop of 7 degrees that will basically disable agricultural efforts at anything colder than the spanish coast during the summer!
I live in the UK, was 12, when it aired. we were made to watch it in school. work that one out. but hay! I'm alright 🤪🤯🥴🤪 May sense and sensibility lead and prevail
i remember watching Threads when i was a kid i was on holiday in our caravan in Shropshire we were about 5 miles from an RAF base & fighter jets would often go over our caravan so when i watched Threads it scared the hell out of me I've only ever seen it once i don't think its ever been televised here in the UK since but i can tell you what happens in it scene by scene so ingrained are the memories , would love it to be televised again
I saw this film in 1985 while on holiday in England (Portsmouth, I believe). I lived in the area served by CKVU and didn't know this movie was carried by that station!
The opening words of the film, and its title, are of wider importance than even as a commentary on the consequences of war. Threads was unique not only because of the level of scientific research and realism involved but in showing that *nothing* would be possible after the bombs fell even for survivors because of how interconnected society is. 'Every person relies on the skills of many others'. Even if all your food stores survive the bombing, they are useless if the roads are bombed, there are no vehicles or fuel to transport them etc etc. Even if you hole up the leadership in shelters, they are useless if they have no working communications to issue orders or way to exercise their authority over people any more. even if doctors survive and hospitals do not collapse, without medical supplies, clean environments and tools, they are as useless as the next survivor. This realisation of how fragile the bonds of civilised, comfortable society are should be far more of a wakeup call to us than merely wanting to avoid nuclear apocalypse. No man is an island.
I'm 42 first watched it on the night it was broadcast- still shits me up. I had family in Sheffield so seeing familiar places being "destroyed" was a shock- I was 13 when it was broadcast- It got me involved in politics and CND [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmement] especially as the UK AWE [Atomic Weapons Establishment] is less the 25km away (15 Imperial Miles)
What made it scarier was that Chernobyl occurred two years after Threads was shown. We in the Western world thought Chernobyl wasn't a big deal 7 days after the West found out. Those poor people in the Soviet Union who experienced radiation poisoning d i ed and suffered horrible. I was 14 when Threads was shown on Australian television.
I was 12 grew up in Newark upon Trent, on the boarder of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. completely surrounded by RAF and NATO airbases, coal power stations along the river Trent ( megawatt valley), Coal mines, Gypsum mines (Plaster for construction), Agriculture Centre - eg - Tate an Lyons (British Sugar), which produces/ grows ALL the sugerbeet crops and then produces the suger in the factory, for the whole of the UK. and M1 Motorway, A1 Road, The Great Northern road, East Coast main railway line, soooo, yes we were a direct target in Newark all the fighter and Bomber planes constantly flying overhead, didn't help much.. knowing that, they were to fly straight to Russia and drop their payloads.. the Vulcan, was just still up there in the 70's.. TERRIFYING. April 2022,,,, B52's have now been sent to a RAF airbase in Gloucestershire !!!??? May sense and sensibility lead and prevail
More like every 18 year old. Given the reviews, I doubt this film would be appropriate for kids younger than that, if it's even appropriate for teens at all.
I lived in Vancouver at the time of this broadcast, and had no idea that 'Threads' had been carried by CKVU! The first time I saw it was in August 1985, on the BBC in Portsmouth. The region-free DVD that I have of this film omits the creepy music heard at 2:00-2:12. Don't know why.
I think the music (Strauss' Alpine Symphony) was removed because of issues with the rights. Only the most recent home releases that came out this year include it, as well as the original version of Johnny B. Goode.
I love the worded warning. It is not a polished Hollywood production.- Given most of the Actors were unknown - apart from Newsreader who was a former BBC Children Television Presenter. - and many of the "Extras" for crowd scenes where just Sheffield unemployed doing it for dole money. - it's as relevant now as then if slightly dated re communications and no one has a Milkman anymore!
I recall there was a discussion on the tv afterwards the then Home Secretary discounted it as exaggerating the effects of a nuclear war and it wouldn’t be that bad, the spokesman from cnd (campaign for nuclear disarmament) said how do you know we’ve not had one, the Home Secretary has no reply!
Is it bad that I wasn't too disturbed by this movie? I watched it one night when I was waiting for something, Now don't get me wrong, it was possibly the greatest TV movie ever made, I'm just saying that I wasn't too disturbed or traumatized by it, though I was still shocked by some of the content shown, I was able to unsee most of it, either way though, it is indeed an accurate depiction of Nuclear war.
I think it depends how old you are. I lived through the height of nuclear war paranoia, and as such I found it absolutely bloody terrifying. However, I have no memory of World War 2, and can cope quite easily with even very disturbing material from that era.
Man that announcer is creepy looking, but hey I'm glad this disclaimer was given, Threads is incredibly graphic, in my mind its like the Saving Private Ryan of nuclear war. I kinda regret watching it.
Actually, it was heavily promoted, including the front cover of the Radio Times (which caused a lot of complaints). But you're right that there was no specially-recorded introduction telling us to brace ourselves.
As well intentioned as the film was, I nevertheless consider it a perfect example of how not to do an anti-war film. The problem with _Threads_ is that the audience is given no reason whatsoever to care about any of the characters since they're all fated to die horribly. And if the audience doesn't care, how exactly are you supposed to get your message across? The late, great Carl Sagan (who, incidentally, served as one of the film's consultants) did a much better job of explaining the need to prevent nuclear war on _Cosmos_ , mainly because he kept it short and to the point instead of forcing the viewers to endure two hours of pain and suffering.
No, but there was a legitimate fear one could happen particularly during the early-to-mid 1980s due to the relationship between Russia and the West. The last time the fear of nuclear war was that acute would likely have been the early 1960s, during the Cuban missile crisis.
There should have been, because the planet wouldn't be in the shit state it is now with Islamic State having as much international support as the IRA had back then when they were "Freedom Fighters" and not child murderers. The Russians and China are bigger twats than they were then, and many leftist twats now living in democracies seem to want a Soviet dictatorship (you know, the one that failed so dramatically after seventy five years and was responsible for the deaths of about a hundred million people) over their own democratically elected government-the same one that would see them put in gulags that they want for us racist, sexist, non-PC male types allegedly running our democratic governments that resemble the racist, sexist, non-PC male types who ran the Soviet Union for seventy-five years. No wonder the Russians are laughing their arses off.
nickatnights No, that's why we are all still here. The Cold War ended in the early 1990s after the Berlin Wall came down. However, prior to Mikhail Gorbachev's presidency in what was then the USSR, there was a very real fear that the events of 'Threads ' would become a reality . This was especially true when the Soviet Union was under the leadership of Yuri Andropov & Konstantin Chernenko.
the thing that made Threads so shocking was it's complete lack of sentimentality - it showed how our humanity depends on the continuity of civilisation without which, we would quickly regress to a state of survival that is terrifying to comprehend.
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.
THREADS
By far the scariest movie I have ever seen. "Threads" makes "The Day After" look like a G-rated Disney animated feature.
TDA is plenty scary and depressing too. The sounds of people screaming right before being vaporized/incinerated is haunting and visceral and sticks with you.
Yep The Day After is the PG rated version that shies away from showing the real horror.
TDA was originally 3 hours long and a LOT of the really horrific scenes were cut. so the director could get it Televised.. to, like threads.. get the message out, about the horror of NW .
I think the uncut edit, is available on blueray/ DVD.
@@owenwexler7214 yes
@@grahamfisher5436 Actually, the assembly cut leaked not too long ago. Most of it consists of dailies but this is pretty much what Nicholas Meyer wanted to make but couldn't.
I still think Threads is the better movie but TDA is pretty tragic in its own right.
I saw it as a 14 year old and it changed everything for me. Its quite unreal now to have all those feelings that lay dormat for so long now triggered again. Its a real harrowing watch.
Threads had came to my attention about a year ago and i gotta say, this was one of the scariest features i've ever seen in my entire life!! it makes all the horror films seem like children's films to me. thanks for sharing this!!
They need to release Threads on DVD and Blu-ray. This movie should also be shown all over the world. Particularly in Congress, governments, and the United Nations. This film is too important to just be a rare film. After watching this, when I hear other countries threatening with nukes, it scares the fucking shit out of me. Thank you for sharing this. Very well-made movie.
It has been released here in the UK, however European DVDs will often not work on US players so if they've released it in the US I don't know.
Aidan Lunn That's what I mean. A company in the American film industry, such as Miramax or Lion's Gate, should produce and distribute it on a region 1 DVD and Blu Ray.
Aidan Lunn Easy fix buy a euro spec dvd player!.
TheCatfeeesh Easy fix in theory, however I'm given to understand it's quite difficult to buy a region-free DVD player over there, let alone a Euro-spec one (which would throw up all sorts of anomalies with incompatible television standards between the UK and US anyway).
I'll buy you one if you refund the cash - as long as your TV has a scart connection, should be no problem.
I love the line "May not be suitable for children" yeah so long as the kiddywinks don't mind seeing burnt corpses and everyone dying i'm sure they'll enjoy it. Its a part of our family movie night.
I wanna come! I'll bring popcorn.
Oh dont forget that pesky global temperature drop of 7 degrees that will basically disable agricultural efforts at anything colder than the spanish coast during the summer!
Perfect for the kiddos!
I live in the UK,
was 12, when it aired.
we were made to watch it in school.
work that one out.
but hay! I'm alright 🤪🤯🥴🤪
May sense and sensibility lead and prevail
i remember watching Threads when i was a kid i was on holiday in our caravan in Shropshire we were about 5 miles from an RAF base & fighter jets would often go over our caravan so when i watched Threads it scared the hell out of me I've only ever seen it once i don't think its ever been televised here in the UK since but i can tell you what happens in it scene by scene so ingrained are the memories , would love it to be televised again
There is about to be a Blu Ray re-master/re-release if you wanted to see it again.
I saw this film in 1985 while on holiday in England (Portsmouth, I believe). I lived in the area served by CKVU and didn't know this movie was carried by that station!
The opening words of the film, and its title, are of wider importance than even as a commentary on the consequences of war. Threads was unique not only because of the level of scientific research and realism involved but in showing that *nothing* would be possible after the bombs fell even for survivors because of how interconnected society is. 'Every person relies on the skills of many others'. Even if all your food stores survive the bombing, they are useless if the roads are bombed, there are no vehicles or fuel to transport them etc etc. Even if you hole up the leadership in shelters, they are useless if they have no working communications to issue orders or way to exercise their authority over people any more. even if doctors survive and hospitals do not collapse, without medical supplies, clean environments and tools, they are as useless as the next survivor. This realisation of how fragile the bonds of civilised, comfortable society are should be far more of a wakeup call to us than merely wanting to avoid nuclear apocalypse. No man is an island.
exactly...
RUclips
ON THE 8TH DAY
I'm 42 first watched it on the night it was broadcast- still shits me up. I had family in Sheffield so seeing familiar places being "destroyed" was a shock- I was 13 when it was broadcast- It got me involved in politics and CND [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmement] especially as the UK AWE [Atomic Weapons Establishment] is less the 25km away (15 Imperial Miles)
A coworker told me about this back in '84. It was broadcast on KTVU in the SF Bay Area. One of the scariest things I've seen.
I’ll never forget when I first saw Threads
I was 10 when threads was broadcast,I grew up terrified of nuclear war,it was a very scary world in the eighties.
What made it scarier was that Chernobyl occurred two years after Threads was shown.
We in the Western world thought Chernobyl wasn't a big deal 7 days after the West found out.
Those poor people in the Soviet Union who experienced radiation poisoning d i ed and suffered horrible.
I was 14 when Threads was shown on Australian television.
I was 12
grew up in Newark upon Trent, on the boarder of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire.
completely surrounded by RAF and NATO airbases, coal power stations along the river Trent ( megawatt valley),
Coal mines, Gypsum mines (Plaster for construction),
Agriculture Centre - eg - Tate an Lyons (British Sugar), which produces/ grows ALL the sugerbeet crops and then produces the suger in the factory, for the whole of the UK.
and M1 Motorway, A1 Road, The Great Northern road, East Coast main railway line,
soooo, yes we were a direct target in Newark
all the fighter and Bomber planes constantly flying overhead, didn't help much.. knowing that, they were to fly straight to Russia and drop their payloads.. the Vulcan, was just still up there in the 70's.. TERRIFYING.
April 2022,,,, B52's have now been sent to a RAF airbase in Gloucestershire !!!???
May sense and sensibility lead and prevail
can't remember the exact broadcast date, but it was also shown on KCTS on the West Coast
Threads should be shown to every 15 year old
More like every 18 year old. Given the reviews, I doubt this film would be appropriate for kids younger than that, if it's even appropriate for teens at all.
12 .... made to watch it at SCHOOL
I lived in Vancouver at the time of this broadcast, and had no idea that 'Threads' had been carried by CKVU! The first time I saw it was in August 1985, on the BBC in Portsmouth. The region-free DVD that I have of this film omits the creepy music heard at 2:00-2:12. Don't know why.
It was also shown by Seattle's PBS affiliate KCTS - I believe prior to the CKVU screening.
robatsea2009 wow. I did not know that.
I think the music (Strauss' Alpine Symphony) was removed because of issues with the rights. Only the most recent home releases that came out this year include it, as well as the original version of Johnny B. Goode.
Interesting they kept the spider bit in, the TBS version introduced by Ted Turner removes it in place of a summary of the basic plot
You can tell by this man's 1000 yard stare, that he himself has just watched the film.
He has been changed.
It truly is one of the most terrifying, disturbing, unnerving and haunting films ever.
I miss the comment that said "HI BILLY MAYS HERE TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE NUCLEAR APOCALYPSE"
Thanks for bringing it back.
why do I get the feeling i'm hearing a piece of music played the beginning of the docu-drama!
There was music on the original, but taken off due to copyright.
but now added back on the recent editions.
I love the worded warning. It is not a polished Hollywood production.- Given most of the Actors were unknown - apart from Newsreader who was a former BBC Children Television Presenter. - and many of the "Extras" for crowd scenes where just Sheffield unemployed doing it for dole money. - it's as relevant now as then if slightly dated re communications and no one has a Milkman anymore!
Vancouverite represent!
I recall there was a discussion on the tv afterwards the then Home Secretary discounted it as exaggerating the effects of a nuclear war and it wouldn’t be that bad, the spokesman from cnd (campaign for nuclear disarmament) said how do you know we’ve not had one, the Home Secretary has no reply!
the debate programme was called-
Newsnight.
it's still on RUclips.
When did CKVU air Threads? CKND aired it as well...was it at the same time?
Scariest horror movie ever
And it still might come true :(
Is it bad that I wasn't too disturbed by this movie? I watched it one night when I was waiting for something, Now don't get me wrong, it was possibly the greatest TV movie ever made, I'm just saying that I wasn't too disturbed or traumatized by it, though I was still shocked by some of the content shown, I was able to unsee most of it, either way though, it is indeed an accurate depiction of Nuclear war.
I found No Blade of Grass, Soylent Green and The Road to be traumatizing
I think it depends how old you are. I lived through the height of nuclear war paranoia, and as such I found it absolutely bloody terrifying. However, I have no memory of World War 2, and can cope quite easily with even very disturbing material from that era.
"events that could take place". These events DID take place. 75 years ago they took place in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Yes but compared to nukes of the 80s, Little Boy and Fat Man were nothing more than firecrackers.
And that was also part of "testing" the atomic bombs.
then!!!!????
They worked out THERMONUCLEAR reactions ..
100000000000× the power of Atomic one's.
Man that announcer is creepy looking, but hey I'm glad this disclaimer was given, Threads is incredibly graphic, in my mind its like the Saving Private Ryan of nuclear war. I kinda regret watching it.
Actually, it was heavily promoted, including the front cover of the Radio Times (which caused a lot of complaints). But you're right that there was no specially-recorded introduction telling us to brace ourselves.
As well intentioned as the film was, I nevertheless consider it a perfect example of how not to do an anti-war film. The problem with _Threads_ is that the audience is given no reason whatsoever to care about any of the characters since they're all fated to die horribly. And if the audience doesn't care, how exactly are you supposed to get your message across? The late, great Carl Sagan (who, incidentally, served as one of the film's consultants) did a much better job of explaining the need to prevent nuclear war on _Cosmos_ , mainly because he kept it short and to the point instead of forcing the viewers to endure two hours of pain and suffering.
@@dunebasher1971 they used the Traffic warden, image, on the front cover of the BBC RADIO TIMES ..
I remember it. the nation had a cardiac
May not be suitable for kids, they showed this to us at school as 13 yr olds
Again. That Presenter looks scared and is scary!
yes!!! =(((((((((((
It's the mouth and eyes.
WTF IS UP WITH THAT PRESENTER!!!!??? Fuck the apocalypse, let's watch him!
that guy has been playing fall out too much
@BojanglesUdon lol. let me guess just to get everything cleaned up with oxy-clean and kaboom ?....lol...
So interesting.
Was there a nuclear war in the 1980s?
No, but there was a legitimate fear one could happen particularly during the early-to-mid 1980s due to the relationship between Russia and the West. The last time the fear of nuclear war was that acute would likely have been the early 1960s, during the Cuban missile crisis.
Yes, it happened again and again in the minds of millions of people all the time. was pretty horrifying.
No, there wasn't a nuclear war in the 1980s. That's why we're all still here and RUclips exists.
There should have been, because the planet wouldn't be in the shit state it is now with Islamic State having as much international support as the IRA had back then when they were "Freedom Fighters" and not child murderers. The Russians and China are bigger twats than they were then, and many leftist twats now living in democracies seem to want a Soviet dictatorship (you know, the one that failed so dramatically after seventy five years and was responsible for the deaths of about a hundred million people) over their own democratically elected government-the same one that would see them put in gulags that they want for us racist, sexist, non-PC male types allegedly running our democratic governments that resemble the racist, sexist, non-PC male types who ran the Soviet Union for seventy-five years. No wonder the Russians are laughing their arses off.
nickatnights No, that's why we are all still here. The Cold War ended in the early 1990s after the Berlin Wall came down. However, prior to Mikhail Gorbachev's presidency in what was then the USSR, there was a very real fear that the events of 'Threads ' would become a reality . This was especially true when the Soviet Union was under the leadership of Yuri Andropov & Konstantin Chernenko.
now !!???
RUclips -
ON THE 8TH DAY
Jeez, the presenter was creepy looking. No wonder he was only on the radio most of the time.
HAHAHAHAHAHA, you made my day