Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

WubsTheFadger Short and Simple Review by WubsTheFadgerThreads depicts a world were nuclear war has really happened. It handles the subject with extreme care and realism. The story is brutal, gory, and horrifying. The last hour is very scary and intense. The ending scene is terrifying.The acting is okay. The acting is very dated but most of the actors hold their own.The pacing is very slow until the bombs are dropped (about an hour into the film). The runtime is overlong.The brutality shown in this film is very realistic and might frighten some people.Pros: Brutal, gory, and horrific story, the ending scene, and the realistic depiction of nuclear falloutCons: Outdated acting, slow pacing in the beginning, and an overlong runtimeOverall Rating: 7.8

nekosensei Having lived through both the initial cold war era of "Dr. Strangelove," "Fail Safe" and "On The Beach" and the Reagan-inspired panic that produced "The Day After," "Testament" and "Threads," and having watched them all in the sociopolitical context in which they were made, I'd say "Threads" is the only one worth watching now in terms of what it has to offer on the subject of nuclear war. Kubrick's pop art masterpiece is still the go-to classic for purposes of entertainment and cinematic appreciation, but this is the film that will graphically illustrate to you what the actual sight of a mushroom cloud going off in your vicinity will do to you (you'll pee your pants) and what the actual effects will be on you and your community (hint: it will NOT provide opportunities for tour de force performances by Jason Robards, Jane Alexander or Peter Sellers.) I went back and watched this again after seeing some vintage British documentaries and PSAs about civil defense during nuclear war on Youtube (particularly the eerie "Protect And Survive" TV spots with their scary little jingle, which are used with frightening effect in this film.) The film's scriptwriter Barry Hines is clearly pointing out what a steaming load the public has been given about the survivability of nuclear war. Without the grand dramatic gestures of the other epics mentioned above, this modest film demonstrates with much more dramatic power how unfathomably inhuman the people at the top are to subject their fellow human beings to this ultimate in sadistic threats.One other thing that I think makes this film more effective than the others mentioned above and more worth watching is its universal dimension, applicable not only to the nuclear scenario but to modern warfare in general with its monstrous emphasis on mass destruction. Hines was speaking to a British audience to which the horrors of the Blitzkrieg were still vivid living memories, and this film, even with its frugal Thatcher-era BBC special effects budget, succeeds in making you feel the trauma of being trapped in a landscape reduced to chunks of concrete and rotting corpses, where survival means literally living like a rat. See it, and the next time you hear someone saying we should bomb the daylights out of this or that country, you might point out to them that bombing a civilian population entails crimes against humanity that they might want to think twice about involving themselves in, even on a purely moral level.The film is introduced with footage of a spider spinning silk from its abdomen, while a narrator compares the structure of human civilization to the interconnected threads of a spider's web. We then see the finished web. It's a pretty thing, but from our perspective fragile. Also a trap.

Andy B When I was a kid in the 1970s, I was terrified of the prospect of nuclear war. The long Cold War years stretched on, and as a young teen, circa 1978, I decided I had to get on with living - or go nuts. This I did and so was largely unmoved by Threads. Which sounds dreadful, but that's the way it was. Ever since Ronald Reagan had been elected as American President in 1980, the left wing press and the dear old leftie BBC (which has never obeyed the impartiality clause of its charter) had been bigging up the terror even more. And Threads was another example of that. Fortunately, Gorbachev arrived in 1985, and the Cold War ice melted rapidly. The second half of the 1980s was nothing like the fearful 70s or early 80s. Of course, being a leftie myself, I had my doubts when Thatcher declared Gorbachev was a man we could do business with, but capitalism was certainly better than incineration. Threads is a dreadful drama that all lefties profess to remember and to say summed up the fears of the entire decade. Nonsense. Remember Gorbachev. Read the newspapers of 1985-1989. Remember reality. The Cold War was over well before the Soviet Union crumbled. In fact, Gorbachev himself stated that it formally ended in late 1989. And the four years leading up to that were certainly nothing like what had gone before.

iViewed Despite the millions of dollars Hollywood wastes on post-apocalyptic films, none have come close to capturing the horror or degrading suffering of post-nuclear-strike "survivors".If such such an event were to occur during my lifetime my preference would be to stop outdoors in the centre of a London park (preferably one with swings and roundabouts) and muck about with some mates until the point where we are instantaneously vaporised beneath the air-burst.Life for we kids born during the 50's and 60's was filled with cold-war paranoia incessantly fanned by irresponsible newspapers and deeply offensive anti-communist propaganda continuously foisted on us by nihilistic American film studios given 100% backing by the US Armed Forces and Republican politicians.Not one US cinematic attempt to portray a realistic nuclear aftermath has disturbed me as profoundly. Threads pulls no punches. No sickeningly toxic sentimentality employed to make a cosy job of such a nightmarish tragedy utilised. It is a raw, unyielding and utterly depressing portrayal of politically unregulated militaristic hegemony.Threads is the only film of this genre worth taking the time to watch. It has unparalleled integrity and sticks strictly to the facts of physical and social science.