Movie Review - Threads

I’m a member of probably the last generation that had to deal with The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. I certainly wouldn’t call it “the height” per se, after all, tensions weren’t as high as during, say, the Cuban Missile Crisis…but I remember being forced to remember where my school’s fallout shelter was. (In middle school, it was in the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms under the gym…which, if we’re being honest, was WAAAAAAAY too small to accommodate even the entire 6th grade, much less the remaining 7th and 8th grades!) The small town I grew up in, Ravenna, Ohio, was home to the Ravenna Arsenal, an Army ammunition plant from 1942 through 1992, so throughout The Cold War, those in the area knew that if the Russians ever attacked, our seemingly innocuous small town was, in fact, a target. So yes, I went through the early years of my life knowing that if shit went down, I was likely toast.

Thank God I had absolutely no idea about the BBC’s Threads which aired on September 23rd, 1984 or my anxiety would have developed much, MUCH earlier in life. Nor was I aware of the US cable TV airing on TBS shortly afterward on January 15th, 1985. That was more a function of circumstance, as my family was too poor for cable TV at that time.

Before we dive into the film properly, there is one other thing to point out. While it might seem like they were dueling movies, the US produced TV-movie ‘The Day After’, with similar subject matter, a nuclear exchange with the Soviets…only the location being here in the US as opposed to Threads’ Brittain, was aired almost a full year prior, back on November 23rd, 1983. Both films deal with the horrors of a post-nuclear war world, but while ‘The Day After’ tried to offer a silver lining with its ending depicting the main character being offered food and comforted by complete strangers: that somehow, through all of this, our basic humanity would survive.

The director of Threads, Mick Jackson, even stated that if the American film got it right, he’d quit the project. They didn’t…or at least, not in his opinion. Still on task, the Beeb looked at the concession that the American film had made, that there could still be a glimmer of hope even in the apocalypse, and said “Fuck that.”

Threads, instead, is utterly unflinching, offering nothing in the way of comfort. As its title refers to, after the bomb falls writer Barry Hines and Jackson show society unravelling until we find a Brittain that has returned to an agrarian culture with language being extremely basic…when spoken at all. Spoiler Alert for a nearly 41-year-old movie: by the time the closing scene shows the stillborn child of someone born after the nukes fell, in essence outright saying that there will NOT be a next generation…holy fuck…it’s the knockout punch after a relentless series of jabs, hooks and uppercuts. I’ve said it here on the site before, I usually love a downer ending…that no, everything is NOT going to be okay. That’s the way George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead ends and this kind of tone was prevalent throughout a lot of movies in the ‘70s. Threads feels like the ultimate culmination of this form of cinematic tone, albeit a few years late, and even I have to hold up a hand and say ‘woah there’.

You’ll notice I didn’t provide a synopsis here and…well, what is there to say? Soviets nuke the UK, shit meets fan. Hilarity ensues. Yeah, I’m kidding with that last bit. Like, seriously, if you find any of this film amusing at all, get help. You’re not right. But let’s talk about it. We start off with Jimmy and Ruth, two young lovers that, well, pretty quickly learn the importance of a condom and birth control. Parents rightfully concerned, the two still make plans to move out, get a place of their own, get married and raise their new family. [Back when people in their late teens and early 20s could realistically buy their own house. Oh, those were the days. – Ed.] All the while, there are increasing tensions in the Middle East: the US and USSR are fighting over Iran and its oil fields. As this conflict continues to escalate, the film does a great job illustrating British society in this context. At first, everything’s normal and there’s the assumption that cooler heads will prevail. Then a US sub goes missing. NATO gets activated and, as such, Brittain starts to mobilize her troops. On the home front, preparations begin. Slowly at first, checking supplies, and we’re shown the city of Sheffield (where the story takes place) start down this emergency procedure. As a viewer, you might wonder if the onset of these moves is a plot contrivance, after all, we’ve only go so much time to the film, right? But, looking at the historical context, England having weathered prolonged aerial bombardment by the Germans in WWII, no, the UK wouldn’t balk at getting shit started early.

Even in this run-up, we see the fabric of society already starting to fray. Grocery stores become…well…just think back to COVID, you’ll get the idea. Protests start to emerge and, as per England’s war planning, we start to see stricter and stricter rules emerge, such as known and possible ‘bad elements’ being proactively arrested. The local governments’ preparations start running into more and more roadblocks…all the while, the nearby military base gets more and more active.

Then, a full hour into the movie, the bombs fall.

When I said ‘unflinching’ a few paragraphs ago, I wasn’t kidding around. We see bodies burning in the streets. We see burns and radiation sickness. We see dead pets, mothers holding dead children and as time goes on, rats eating the numerous dead bodies. Within the context of the movie, you’re not questioning the art direction or thinking about how the practical effects crew pulled some of this off. The narrative of the movie is so powerful that at some level, you will treat this as real. And you WILL wince at least once at what you see onscreen. [And again, seriously, if you don’t, get some help. You’re not right. – Ed.] All that being said, the fact that you’re NOT thinking about how the effects guys did all this means that they did one hell of a job here…especially for a TV movie!

While the historical context of The Cold War is important here, there are two things to consider parallel to this. First, it amazes me that this got aired at all. Remember, this was Thatcher’s England…a time of censorship and the “video nasties”. And perhaps that came into play. Wikipedia lists the film’s running time at 112 minutes while the version streaming on Shudder runs for 117 minutes. Sure, it’s only a difference of 5 minutes, but given some of the more intense scenes and how quick Thatcher’s British Film Board was with the scissors, the discrepancy has to be due to some edits made prior to hitting the airwaves. Secondly, while we’re shown a hypothetical example of the cause being nuclear war, whether it was COVID or even what we’re seeing in the United States now, Threads does a terrifyingly good job showing just how quickly and how little it takes for our society to start to unravel…slowly at first, but when you introduce a catalyst, it’s off to the races to the bottom. And you won’t like what you see on the way down.

We here at the Cat have always tried to have a little bit of fun with our movie selections and when we recommend something, it’s usually to say “hey, pass this on.” Threads is not fun. Honestly, this is not the kind of movie you call your buddies up for and say “Dude, we’re gonna watch Threads, you in? Bring the beer, okay?” I will recommend it. Highly. Like, Hypno-Cat highly. But…fuck. This is one that you watch solo and you sit back after the credits with an existential dread wondering why the fuck you watched that. Or maybe having a loved one there with you, someone to help you digest it afterwards? I dunno. I watched it alone. Okay, with my dog, but he wasn’t too interested. Probably not helping my mindset was I watched it in the middle of the night when everything was quiet. Still, it’s worth seeing. I think you SHOULD see it. Maybe it’ll change your mindset or attitude about what’s happening in the world…or maybe it’ll just make you depressed. Remember, the spectre of nuclear war isn’t gone. In fact, at the time of this writing, with India and Pakistan recently having a brief period of flinging missiles at each other, it may be closer than we think. No matter the circumstance though, the chilling throughline that needs to be taken away here is that it doesn’t take much of a tug on the fabric of society to leave us with nothing but Threads.