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This Memory is looking a little short on nostalgia! Have you got anything you could add?

This BBC made-for-TV movie scared me witless in 1985. Set in Sheffield it centred on a few families and how they coped with a full-scale nuclear war. Not pleasant viewing and certain to tip fence-sitters onto the side of the CND! The final scene lives in my memory for ever.

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  • Anonymous user
    on
    I've always been facinated by it too! An incredible film- I have a copy on VHS cassette and have seen it 3 times. The bits of sick irony that crop up throughout the film from time to time are really artful- for example, the theme music from 'Tomorrow's World' being overheard from a TV on the eve of the war (as though there's going to BE a world tomorrow!!), and the Standard Life billboard advert showing a happy, healthy baby beaming down on a straggle of diseased, starving survivors. Tragically, the young actress who played Ruth Kemp's daughter was killed in a car crash in 1990 at the age of just 21. The DVD release of the film was issued in her memory.
  • scotchmist
    on
    I've always had a morbid facination with nuclear war! I was 19 when I watched this and had been looking forward to it for weeks! One of my friends who was the same age as me was advised by his parents not to watch it and he complied....what a woos! It didn't scare me particularly because I was quite savvy about the devastation such a nuclear holocost could incur. I just remember being blown-away (sorry!) by how authentic it all was! The three scenes which stood out for me were: the lady wetting herself outside the supermarket...yes, they showed it in graphic detail! The council officials in their nuclear bunker who despite all their industrial strength insulation seemed to be getting the worst of it, I could almost feel my own home shaking with the blasts! As for the final scene....let's not go there...!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    The one thing that stuck in my mind was a woman having a baby and chewing through the umbilical cord. Couldn't sleep for weeks.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I now have the first half of Threads in mpeg format on my computer, and finally watched it last night (the point where it cuts out is about a week after the attack). Well, I didn't have the same violent response to it as the first time - slept fine, no nightmares, no gripping anxiety. But whether that's because I knew what to expect, or that I'm better able to handle it, emotionally, at 40 than I was at 18, I don't know. I suspect a major factor is that I've been on anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication for years, and I think that's blocking a significant part of the reaction... I may not be consumed with terror, but I am certainly thinking about it almost constantly today. Regardless of my milder response this time around, I'd say that this film has had a greater impact on my life than any other I've ever seen.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I watched this when my friend gave me it on DVD on my insistance. I will never ever watch it again. It's horrible. It upset me greatly and I was 30 when I saw it. One of my friends heard I had it and begged me to lend it to her. I said no. She nagged and nagged so I lent it to her. She was in tears the next time I saw her.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I've only ever seen clips of this film, but what they portrayed made me curious enough to read as much as I could about it on the internet. I find this subject deeply troubling, but at the same time it draws me into it, and I find myself constantly looking on related websites. I'm not sure if I actually want to watch the whole thing on DVD, but I'm sure I would if I ever stumbled accross it. I recently watched one of those 100 scariest film countdown things and, though I haven't seen Threads fully, I'm confident that it is far more frightening than anything that was shown.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I was 18 when this was broadcast. I'd been a member of CND since I was 15, and had done plenty of reading about what might happen during a nuclear war, but even so, 'Threads' gave me nightmares for months afterwards. The scene that particularly stayed with me was of someone walking up a flight of steps, and leaving bloody footprints. Recently I found the movie for sale on ebay, and nearly bid on it, but decided that - more than twenty years later - I wasn't ready to see it again.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Our Modern Studies TEACHER showed us this when we were in first year!!!!!!!! (aged about 12 -13). I was (and still am) emotionally scarred by this!! I am sure they wouldnt be allowed to show it to this age group nowadays! Saw it recently on UK Horizons! SCARED WITLESS
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I couldn't agree more about how frightening 'Threads' was. For YEARS afterwards I wished I'd never watched it. It was aired when I was about 15 and as I actually lived in Sheffield, it COMPLETELY freaked me out!! As if all the usual teenage worries and neuroses regarding boys, spots and exams weren't enough to contend with - having to watch your home town be very realistically annihilated in a nuclear holocaust wasn't exactly what I'd expected from my evening's TV viewing!! lolol. At school the next day everyone was wigging out about the programme and one or two classmates even had to be sent home because they were so distraught! 'Threads' was, literally, a bit too close to home for me Im afraid, lol.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I first watched this when I was 13. It made me physically sick for 3 months. Watch it once and then vow never to watch it again. I haven't and don't think I ever will.

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