|
Threads [1984] | ![Threads [1984]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71PWWVHAXSL._SL500_.gif)
| Director: Mick Jackson
Actors: Karen Meagher, Reece Dinsdale, David Brierly, Rita May, Nicholas Lane
Studio: Meridian Entertainment
Category: Video
List Price: £15.99
Buy New: £4.09
You Save: £11.90 (74%)
New (2) Used (6) from £2.90
Avg. Customer Rating:  116 reviews
Sales Rank: 1007
Format: Pal
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 112
Discs: 1
EAN: 5014503407124
ASIN: B00004U3VW
Theatrical Release Date: September 23, 1984
Release Date: July 10, 2000
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new sealed. All orders are despatched from mainland UK within 48hrs - usually same day.
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Hideously plausible when first broadcast in 1984, this BBC TV docu-drama now seems like a terrifying might-have-been, although a great deal of what it says about the probable aftermath of a nuclear attack remains horribly pertinent. Scripted by Barry Hines (author of the novel on which Ken Loach's Kes was based) and directed by Mick Jackson (who later went to Hollywood with The Bodyguard and Volcano), at the time Threads seemed like a response to the American TV movie The Day After although it stands nobly on its own. Showing the after-effects of World War III on the United Kingdom by concentrating on two Sheffield families linked by an unplanned pregnancy, it illustrates the scientific, political, medical and social consequences of the severing of the many vital connective "threads" that support a Western society. Grim in a particularly 1980s way, this is a compulsive if uncomfortable watch and accomplishes a great deal without the distraction of spectacle, picking through all the melted milk bottles and firing squad traffic wardens to find the human horror at the heart of it all. --Kim Newman
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 111 more reviews...
 Fascinating 'authentic' take on 'Survivors.' December 4, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was in the car today trying to explain to my daughter why the BBC's new 'Survivors' series is a load of old conkers because a real Holocaust would be far more messy and far more awful. It made me think of Threads.
Like most people of my generation - mid-forties - I watched this thing when it was first screened and was profoundly scared. The images remain with me - I recall the Traffic warden with the gun on the front page of the Radio Times. It was a shocking, bold piece of television.
I take issue - however - with some of the comments here about it's relevance. The likelihood of a Middle East conflict decending into an all-out nuclear war was - and remains - remote. The 'scenario' - which involves the West using tactical nukes - is as fanciful as the scenario in The War Game.
Threads actually makes - very well - the bone-crunchingly obvious point that nuclear war would be a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. It scared the bejesus out of people back then and, apparently, still does. CND used the programme remorselessly to scare impressionable young people - like me. However it is not as frightening as - say - Fail Safe, which, although set in underground bunkers, has a far more credible set of circumstances for the button to get pushed.
This is a fantasy. A dark, horrible, bone-chilling fantasy, but as real as EastEnders or Heartbeat. The programme makers were attacked at the time for their - frankly - scare-mongering, something they were prepared to live with.
Really disturbing television - rather than just shocking - is some of the stuff you see about the concentration camps or 9/11 - real things. Threads is not in that league.
On the positive side, Reece Dinsdale gets it fairly early, too.
Timeless warning (unfortunately), and not entertainment material November 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Apocolypse lovers, exit stage left; this really will not entertain you. This is a docu-drama, not a film, and the material is intended to shock, distress, and educate on the truth behind a full-scale nuclear war. No robots, no intelligent apes, and certainly no Morlocks. Seriously. Goodbye.
For anyone still here, this is the second of two infamous films produced by the BBC to give a more scientifically accurate account of what a nuclear war would actually mean to us, the populace (the first being 'The War Game'). Nightmare visions aside - and I have to say, my imagination expected more based on my prior reading on the subject, so it didn't do much to me - this is an ironically funny account of why surviving such a thing is not really an option worth considering.
In brief: Sheffield in Britain, 1984, and in far-off places Soviet Union troops try to occupy lands in the Middle East, provoking a response from the United States. After a peaceful but ominous introduction giving us insight into the very ordinary lives of the people of Sheffield, the two superpowers escalate their feud to a full-scale nuclear war that reduces Britain - and we assume everywhere else too - to a Medieval level of living, riddled with cancers and diseases. As someone once quipped after seeing it, 'I kind of wish the Terminator would appear, if just to put them all out of their misery. This is horrible.' This is not easy viewing.
Before the event, people are duped into 'remaining calm' and staying at home (not like there's much point doing anything else though), while the disorganised authorities desperately try to salvage art treasures, relocate fire engines, arrest protestors and install portaloos in their basement shelters. And for the public, the continual replays of the chilling 'Protect and Survive' Public Information Films would serve little consolation I think.
After the strike - by far the most hard-impact scenes in the thing, and very impressive given the production date and budget - the army are enforcers, the authorities reduced to heartless statisticians witholding food from people who will inevitably die from radiation sickness as a matter of simple common sense.
And all along, the facts are brought to you in a clinical monotone narrative and telex-style screen messages that, against the soundtrack-free film, make it all the more unsettling.
This is probably best watched in daylight, and in a very good mood. Any UK viewers may start fretting every morning at 8:33, and you may find yourself suddenly wanting to watch the news a bit more, possibly. Or it may just make you think what I thought; while it is profound and well written, this should never have needed to have been made, and it shouldn't still be relevant. But it is.
Still As Shocking in the 21st Century November 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I first saw Threads as a 13 year old in 1985 and was affected and haunted by it then, without really understanding why.
I received this DVD last Christmas from my wishlist and after watching it I felt depressed and deeply affected for at least a fortnight after.
As covered by other reviewers, this film covers the build up, climax and aftermath of nuclear conflict and is set in Sheffield in the first half of the 80s. The film comes from a very human perspective without any glitzing up or apparent over dramatising.
The bleakness of the images and futility portrayed in this film makes it one that every adult should see and be affected by.
Possibly the Most Powerful Film I Have Ever Watched November 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought Threads after watching The Day After and finding that film both powerful and moving however Threads takes everything a step further and removes absolutely any sugar coating on the subject (not that there was any in The Day After anyway).
You'll see through the lives of a couple of families in Sheffield what would happen in a nuclear attack. Some don't last the initial explosion, others make it through the first few days and then others fail to survive the radiation. Where Threads really excels for me above The Day After (which is still a great film) is that Threads continues to follow what happens with snapshots of the years ahead to the next generation and just how awful their lives and society would be.
Threads is not comfortable viewing but with its story, imagery and the real likelihood that this would become reality should a nuclear war take place really sends it home. An absolute must see.
 This was a shockingly bad "comedy" November 24, 2008
0 out of 27 found this review helpful
I sat through this whole film having been told it was one of the funniest films ever made. Well, that certainly wasn't true. Very few laughs and a bit of a depressing ending. It really is grim up North. If you want a good laugh avoid this.
|
|
|
© Shops.UK.net in association with Amazon.co.uk | |
