Review of Threads (1984)

Moving picture, 112 minutes

The lives of some people in Sheffield. A documentary-style layer with written and spoken narration describes the events leading up to and the detailed effects of a thermonuclear war. Another layer is a relentless practical application to two families and the local emergency government. A woman in one family gets pregnant several months before the war, and the movie doesn’t end until her child has had a baby of her own.

Cold War turned hot horror. True science fiction in an illustrative sense. A shining beacon of realism. Barefoot Gen (1983) meets “The War Game” (1965) on massive scales, closer to the present and without the goofy aspects.

References here: The Day After (1983), The Postman (1985), Letters from a Dead Man (1986), Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (2009).

moving picture fiction