I've just watched the film 'Threads' for the first time. If you haven't seen it already, don't watch it!

[worriedhidinginplainsight]

I have been following some of the 'threads' on MN regarding people being scared of WW3/Nuclear war. Personally I don't worry about it. I have always been firmly in the camp of not worrying about something that I have zero control over. Also not worrying about something in the future, to the detriment of today. However, I noticed this particular film mentioned a few times during the discussions so today, out of curiosity, I decided to watch it.

What a mistake that was! It was a horrible terrifying watch. I would not recommend that anyone else watches it! Quell your curiosity.

It's just left me feeling really horrible and feeling like as humans we are all so vulnerable. I also felt very worried about my cat, if anything like that were to happen! Innocent animals would suffer so much because of very dangerous humans. If humans didn't exist, and the world was populated by only animals, it would be a much safer and peaceful place.

It did seem like a nuclear bomb would transport the survivors back to medieval times. In a way it has also made me feel that as humans we are pretty amazing, how we have built up and created our societies, technology, engineering. I feel really grateful for what we have.

But overall it was horrible and I wish that I never watched it.

This evening I have found myself on Amazon looking up gas masks, fireproof boxes and googling all about prepping!!

I need to forget about this film!!

I watched it. In a bedsit in Sheffield, 40 odd years ago.Still there (Sheffield, not the bedsit). Knew people who were extras in the film and many of the locations. It felt very real, and terrifying.
I know children/teens were 'made' (given the opportunity maybe?) to watch it. I also know that many of them were affected enough to protest/join CND/make their voices and opinions heard.
That's rare these days.
Perhaps we should be showing it again ... on prime time TV ('Strictly' spot maybe). In schools (secondary).
Not perhaps ... we should.

Oh , we watched it a couple of weeks ago . Reece Dinsdale telling his family that his girlfriend was pregnant and the family loosing their rag and planning the future for them as in married straight off , job etc , don;t have the neighbours talking ,. (Very 1980s) . Then everything changes ...

The advert that upset me was one about rabies where a family in France are approached by a dog , the girl is bitten and she has to have the horrible painful anti-rabies jabs .
UK was proud of its rabies free status but all it would take is a smuggled rabid animal ...

I found "When the Wind Blows" more sad but less traumatic.
Watching it in the 80s was a Gen X rite of passage. I follow this great young guy on YT who explores our slightly fucked up childhood

Let's face it, there's bobbins that we can do

I saw it a few weeks ago, I have seen it before and on Facebook a schoolmate said we watched it at school. I don’t think we would have as we were 1979/1980’s babies so just Gen x. It’s terrifying and you would rather be taken out by the blast than try and navigate the world afterwards.

Threads, Where the Wind Blows, The horrifying health and safety adverts... the one in the train tunnel when the kids all do a school cross country run...and they lay the bodies out at the end... yep, every since one is etched into my brain!

It's why we 'Gen X'-ers are tough... we were so traumatised in childhood that nothing can scare us after the 1980s!

There was another post nuclear film/series where a young girl is left alone in a house and she looks after a strange man who is dying from radiation sickness, he gradually gets weaker and his hair falls out... anyone remember that?

It slightly comforts me that I live in an RAF town and if the bombs dropped we'd be nuked instantly!

A PP mentioned The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Definitely do not read this (or watch the film)
It's a masterpiece, congratulations to the writer for so scarily imagining a horrifying societal breakdown etc, but in the same vein as Threads.
I read it and wished I hadn't. If I could unsee it I would

I honestly think I am still traumatised by that! I was young, had recently left home and remember the absolute fear it left me with, which was mirrored by that of my colleagues in work the next day.
My brothers still tease me about that terror and I cannot bear to think of watching it again

@Sonolanona Was the series with the girl looking after a man called Z for Zachariah by any chance? They were in a narrow valley which by a freak of geography was escaping the radiation and the man came over the hill in a radiation suit

I also saw it at school in the 80s. Surely there's no point prepping?

I have watched Threads many times and each time it is still shocking. I am a horror fan so perhaps that is the fascination. I was a teen in the 80's so remember the TV adverts, Frankie Goes to Hollywood with the sirens and what to do if you hear the air raid siren, Nucleur war and AIDS on the TV and leaflets through the door. I had a nasty start to peri and had auditory hallucinations which included air raid sirens, extremely unpleasant.

Great film. I really don't give a toss if we had a nuclear war.

I have only seen it once, which was when it was first broadcast in the 1980s. I was a young mother at the time and found it very thought-provoking, disturbing and yet also fascinating.
We all take our sophisticated, mechanised, managed, controlled and civilised society for granted. It seems impossible that it could ever break down. But the "threads" that hold our civilisation together are fragile and easily broken.
William Golding's brilliant novel, Lord of the Flies, explores a similar theme.

I watched Threads the other day for the first time and thought it was fantastic. Horrifying, but surely that was the point.

@Sonolanona - I think you are referring to Z for Zachariah.

I spent much of my childhood and adolescence planning what I would need to pack in the event of a nuclear apocalypse- I remember being particularly worried about how many toilet rolls I should try to squeeze into a rucksack😹 Those ‘Protect and Survive’ leaflets were terrifying!

I saw Threads years ago and have rewatched it since. I was amazed at how well it had stood the test of time, and also that I remembered it so well. It obviously had a big impact on me.

I understand people not wanting to see it, but I think it’s a very important film and should reach a wider, modern audience.

Well we all grew up on!

Didn't harm us. Todays snowflake generation need a dose of reality

*ok

Quite. Then you get the threads where people who grew up them are called privileged boomers. Or threads saying how much they would loved to live in the 80s because, you know music and fashion. Nothing about the 70s and 80s being quite scary. Nothing about 3 day weeks, power cuts, mass unemployment, rioting, etc. Apparently, we are all lucky.

I suppose in a sense we are lucky in that we know if a nuclear bomb drops by far the best thing to do is to run towards it.

I think this is the beginning of the end of the war in Ukraine. There's a lot of muscle flexing going on, all this nuclear scare stuff will shift public opinion in the West about supplying weapons. Public support for Ukraine has been unequivocal, but I think that'll wane significantly in the coming weeks.
I watched Threads again recently (I think the BBC showed it again?). It's dated now, though the relatable sense does prevail to a degree. I didn't find it scary, it's relentless bleakness is tough going though - I fast forwarded the final third to see the ending.

I think it should be remade for the younger, modern audience.

Just watched it on iplayer on the back of this.

So many childhood memories in the first part of this. I was only about 7 when this first came out so have never seen it although have heard of it.

When I was growing up in the 80s there was a tangible threat of nuclear war and I remember hearing practice air raid sirens carried if the wind came in a certain direction which always freaked me out.

Was a good film, very much of its time and the threat has never gone away. Once such weapons exist they are aways a shadow and perhaps topical right now with developments between the US ans Russia.

Does anyone remember a BBC series called "Survivors " shown in the 1970s? After a plague had killed almost everyone. I have never forgotten that, and l don't think it was anywhere as scary as Threads.

Why?

We all watched it from 12 upwards...

What age are you thinking of?

Watched it! Loved it! Harrowing AF. BUT, I think as I was born in 1986, I don't have that immediate fear that I'm sure many had in the 80s when first seen.

The headlines in the movie could be happening now!

I still hate pylons today. I know they're necessary but I hate to see them. Ugly as well.

Did I dream it or did Roald Dahl around that time write a little booklet about avoiding messing around on the railway lines? I recall a special assembly at school where these were handed out.

I did the same! Had seen it mentioned and finally thought will watch it.

I will be honest I wasn’t fazed by it at all. I was expecting it to be more harrowing considering what everyone has said.

Just shows how desensitised I must be which is quite scary.