Culture

What do you remember of 'Threads'?

Nick
I recently watched threads for the first time this week (8th May 2009) i was horrified at the film, and what could one day happen!! such a shocking film brilliantly made!

cher
I first seen Threads when I was 18. I was at home watching it with my mom and friend on a Sunday night. The film horrified me of what could be a reality and hopefully it never will be. I remember after the film that I didn't sleep that night. I kept seeing images of all those wounded and dead people every time I closed my eyes. I pulled an all nighter and went to school the next day. I was totally freaked out to say the least. I now have the movie on dvd and have watched it a few more times.I still get freaked out when the bomb hits and people get incinerated. Still it's a very good movie with excellent actors and actresses. The effects were great for being in 1985 and there was not much in the ways of computer animation as there is now. Fabulous film and frightening as well. What I don't understand is how schools showed it to students as young as ten years old though. I was 18 when I saw the film and I was frightened. I felt the film should've been rated R for graphic violence. That's my take on it.

tom
recently watched this for the first time and it absolutely terrified me. Im a student, born in 87, but its still harrowing to see places that are recognisably sheffield, and hear the voices that could have been me and my mates completely obliterated by nuclear war....

Liz
I was out riding my horse on the moors and saw Threads being filmed - I had no clue what it was but it looked frightening - when I saw it on TV not long after the images stayed with me a long time. My physics teacher must have told me many things - the one concept that remains is "If there is a nuclear way - pray that you are killed in the explosion and not by radiation sickness"

adriansmallwood@yahoo.co.uk
i remember seeing this when i was ten years old with my sister. i am now 35. i was absolutely terrified, and had sleepless nights. absolutely scared out of my wits i was. i recently got the opportunity to see the film again, and it is still eqully unnerving. i remember a lot of unease about the eigthies. my dad was out of work for a long time, and nuclear weapons, which now i guess arent so much at the front of peoples minds were very much a reality back then. my friends dad was a councillor at the time i remember he was very much involved in setting up an underground bunker for the local council in dudley.

Rob
I saw this film in 84 and it scared the hell out of me,the next time i saw it was 20 years later,it was on bbc4 i couldn,t beleive it i had to watch it again to see those images that have stayed with me all those years.never has a film knocked the stuffing out of me as much as this one.knowing that everything we have taken for granted our lives,families,homes,food,happiness could all be gone so abruptly.everyone should watch threads,compulsory viewing!!

nathan, London
I'm 19 and I have seen threads twice And it left me shaken Bear in mind that this was made in 1980s so I'm a teen from the 2000s and when you think about it a nuclear war could still happen today. Just so happens that NATO are no longer fighting The Soviet & Warsaw Pact countries, It's now the Islamic Terrorists and since September 11 2001 there is a real possibilty More than ever of Threads coming to life I'm suprised no one has made a film about this subject yet

Damian Wrexham
The first time i saw threads. Was in School and later tv It is a brillent Drama And should be shown to younger Generations to inform them The Dangers of War

Vic
I remember catching a part of the film years ago (the eating a raw sheep bit) and whoever i mentioned it to ever since thought i was mad. went to hack green nuclear bunker in cheshire and saw an advert for it. came home, watched it on the web and scared myself silly. it is an amazing film that gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. as is written on the wall at hack green "if the next war is fought with nuclear weapons, the one after it will be fought with bows and arows" horrible thought!

Mike
My teacher showed the movie to us in 1995. Since then, I've watched it again and again and still it haunts me.!

Jonathan Rich
I first saw 'Threads' quite some time after I had seen 'The Day After', and between the two movies, 'Threads' had a much more intense effect upon me than did 'The Day After'. I have the movie on VHS, and I actually find myself holding my breath and stuttering in my breathing... and I cry... during the nuclear blast and firestorm scenes. The shots of suffering and dead pets and burning people were horrifying, forcing me to try to better grasp reality. The film just draws you in. Too much of it was too real as portrayed, the horror of nuclear war revealed to all, and in very realistic terrible gory detail. An amazing film, 'Threads', and one that everyone in the world should see. One can only wonder... if this film has been seen by enough real world leaders, to enlighten them as to the real horror of nuclear war, and that such should never be permitted to come to pass in any measure. God forbid that such ever should come to happen, and if it does... the dead will truly be the lucky ones. ~ Jonathan Rich, Baltimore City, Maryland, USA -

Roger Kinder - Manchester
Without doubt the scariest film I've ever seen. The threat of nuclear war was, and still is my biggest fear. As Sting famously sang, 'I hope the Russians love their children too.'

Paul Cambell
My brother was in threads, he was the dead boy underneath a five bar gate.

Phil in Australia
I watched Threads when I was living in the UK; I was 24 at the time. I had nightmares for years, and just felt there was nowhere to run to. It turned my life upside-down and has affected me ever since. Four years later I could take it no longer and moved to rural Australia!

Darryl Stone. Queensland,Australia.
I watched this in 85 when I was 15 and thought that we as a race of educated peoplecould plan such things.Now I am closer to 40 and a bit wiser I find it no matter how much good we can do it's in our nature to destroy ourselfs.

Sarah Smith (nee Goodison)
I was in this film as an extra. I was at drama college with Barry Hines daughter Sally at the time. Still gives me nightmares when I think about it. As a sheffield born girl, to see such devastation in my home town was horific.

Alistair Cowell, Glasgow, Scotland
Watched it recently, it is a very frightning and disturbing film. Have many disturbing scenes. Before the attack, Protect and Survive were shown on TV, millitry vehicles passing. We see a Nuclear Attack, Cat dying in fire, people screaming in hospital with man's leg amputated, people die, it is very horrible. The Nuclear War will not happen anyway, so hopefully things will never happen!And Threads is only a film!

Obama
If Obama is elected President of the United States, I think Threads will become a reality.

TK
I was young, about 12, when I seen it. It scared the crap out of me then and it still gives me nightmares!!!

James Lovette-Black
I remember a scene with a protester holding up a manual can-opener and loudly declaring that these would be priceless, should the bombs drop. It was a chilling scene that came to pass. An excellent and horrifying vision of what could happen if humanity does not turn away from war and conflict.

patrick rancourt , 3-rivières city, Canada
lots of nitemares along my teen's era and negativism until 1992 when cold war was defenitly desingrated

Kevin Coombes
I grew up during the cold war and it is not an exaggeration to say it dominated my life. I think "Threads" would help my children understand what it was really like. It remains the only true visualisation of how awful things could have (and still may) become. How can I get a copy?

LOUISE HESKETH
I REMEMBER THE BUILD UP TO WATCHING THREADS ON BBC2 AND VERY CURIOUS AND EXITED TO WATCH SUCH A FILM ,I HAD NIGHTMARES FOR MONTHS AND IS POSSIBLY ONE OF THE MOST FRIGHTENING FILMS EVER MADE ,PLEASE PUT IT BACK ON TV,THE CLIP OF WATCHING AND LISTENING TO THE GOVERNMENT P AND S WILL ALLWAYS HAUNT ME

DJ Kinney
I watched this film when I was too young. Maybe 9. I ended up repressing the memory and having severe PTSD from it. I couldn't even go outside on an average sunny day for fear of being caught outside in the bomb. The memories of what had caused it resurfaced when I was about 18. I ended up studying Cold War history in college. It changed the direction of my entire life. Didn't ruin me, but changed me forever.

Helen
I watched it in RE last year when my class were studying war, and there are literaly now words to describe how scared I was + still am. This summer me + my family drove through Sheffield + I could barely keep my eyes open I was so scared! I still haven't seen the whole film, but I think I've seen enough. Still, a very good film.

Andy
I was an extra in Threads when I was 17 with my younger brother (CND scene outside Sheffield City Hall). When the film was first shown I couldn't wait to see it and watched it through. Even being part of the production didn't prepare me for the full horror of this film especially seeing images of recognisable locations being blown apart.

Chris Husing
Yes, global nuclear war is unthinkable. But it was American and British nuclear weapons that kept the Soviets out of Europe and from parading down Piccadilly. All the protests of CND and other anti-American, anti-nuclear demonstrators in Britain neglected to realize that the nuclear stalemate amongst the superpowers was the only think keeping World War Three from starting.

David Hutchinson
It was good drama but abit far fetched. In my opinion I dont think its possible to survive after a nuclear war

Alaskan
As a young boy i remember the bombers which would fly over the Bearing sea. They terrified me. I saw this film last night for the first time. It brought back many of my childhood feelings. Lets hope a future like this never comes to pass.

waylon davies
I saw this film for the first time earlier this year, having grown up at the time of its release i was aware of the the hype and now understand why my parents would not let a 10 year old watch it. Even today i found the film harrowing and brutally real, i feel everyone over the age of 15 should see this film, especially in todays climate with nuclear terrorism a very real possibility. I'm sure i speak for everyone on this planet by saying i hope nothing like this ever happens.

Eli
I remember watching this movie when I was in elementary school (couple of years after the movie THE DAY AFTER). As a young a boy, I was mesmorized about the idea of if our world would be under a nuclear attack. Even looking at it now, the scenes of people scrambling about makes me wonder how vulunerable the people can be during this fantasy crisis.I would like to watch this movie again and think about what if it happens again.

andrea, london
I think it was 1989 when my English teacher showed this film. I have never forgotten it. I have thought about it in the years since. Excellent programme - disturbing and thought provoking.

Darren - Peterborough
I remember first seeing the film at school in late 1984. The most overriding memory I have is as the film ends in that very sudden way, with no sound, a group of 15 year old students at the end of the lesson were completely silent for a couple of minutes before exiting the room in a very subdued way. Such was the effect it had on us all, walking home with a friend we didn't speak at all until we had almost reached home, we didn't need to say a word, we could tell how much it had touched us both.I saw the film again about a year later at home and the effect was not diluted at all. It was a brilliantly written account of a potential future that in the mid eighties was still a terrifying possibility.To this day this film is a very poignant reminder of the futility of global nuclear war. Lets hope we are never placed in the position that the threat of such a conflict is ever a real possibility again.

Michael L.
I viewed this on Google video from my house in California a month or so ago- after the bombing scene, I couldn't watch anymore. It was just too jarring and realistic- the most frightening film of all time by sheer plausibility.

si
what a thing to show us at school at 13, had nightmares and was just waiting to see the mushroom cloud while in class. I had to buy it because it fascinates me now.

Jane. R.
Like Pamela said (hello Pamela, I'm sure we were in the same year at school...), I went to Hillsobrough School and had the day off to film at the old Royal Infirmary (now the 24 hr Tesco on Infirmary Road). They bandaged me, ripped my "Kids from Fame" outfit, gave me fake scabs, & put radiation sickness down my top. Was great fun to be part of (even if only as a mini-extra) - but I then HAD to watch it, in case I could be seen. It scared the life out of me, and I had nightmares about nuclear war for years afterwards, in fact, truth be told, it occasionally still scares me now! I've got it on DVD and watch it from time to time, always forgetting that awkward silence that inevitably follows afterwards. I wasn't anywhere to be seen on film, by the way.

Zane
I was went to look for pictures of Sheffield after I watched the film, wondering if that awful 70s looking building is still there. I see Sheffield city has been redeveloped. I guess if the nukes didn't end up getting it, the wrecking ball obviously has...

bob roberts
the film hits you like a brick sad to say its never safe to live in these times and the feeling it could happen tommorow

Lisa
I have nightmares still about the possibility of this actually happening especially with whats going on now. Im 36 and only saw this recently on video. I wonder if it will be shown on tv again? I hope not.

Darren Morton, New Brunswick, Canada
Sheffield was my home town at the time that 'Threads' aired. At the time I remember being fearful of the hard-line stance that Ronald Reagan had regarding what he termed 'the evil empire' of the USSR. Threads captured that sense of threat perfectly and, like a few other programmes, critically and graphically portrayed the human impact of a 'limited' nuclear war in Europe. Given the current world situation I think we are probably ready for another film like 'Threads'. Films like this should always be made.

Robert
I must say the traumatizing effect on the people.Years after people didn't speak very much and obviously were half insane by all the suffering they saw.But I always believed the positive innovative would always survive and rebuild the society.The best adapted would survive.

Daniel Maguire
I watched this film as a 13 year old and it scared the life out of me. 20 years later i am still thinking about. Exelent show great writing

Tom Hanson, Orange County California
I viewed this on PBS in the 80s as a young boy. The film haunted me to my core and has shaped my worldview since then. I will forever be one to press diplomacy, education, and empathy over power, corruption, and indifference to others.

daniel
it was scary.

Dave
Like many others have said here, I remember watching Threads when it was first broadcast (I think on BBC 1 but it might have been 2). I was at secondary school at the time and had nightmares after watching the film, I never told anyone. Even to this day (Sept 2006) Threads occasionally pops into my mind.

Meleri hughes
traumatising

Mr.O.H.Sutton
The part where ruth has to deliver her baby. I have downloaded part one on my computer but can't access part two which really annoys me. It was a real great doco I wish it would be repeated again.

Toby
Still scares me, 12 years on. No longer US Vs USSR, but Religion Vs Freedom. We're doomed.

Stephen James Gray
There isn't much that I can add to all the other comments here, that hasn't already been said. The film is very disturbing, but ultimately it is well made and really does make you think. I find it both frightening and facsinating.

S.Davis
I remember buying a vhs copy of THREADS in 1989 from the cinema shop in Plymouth and it must have taken me at least three attempts to watch this film. It made me feel quite sick to know the exact amount of damage and suffering a single warhead can cause on one place. It did play on my mind for some time after, until I saw it again a few years later on t.v. just after seeing the interview with Barry Hines and the making of this remarkable film. An extremely moving film and brilliantly made.

Amando
The first time I viewed the film was during the Gulf War in the early ninties (and how ironic a civil war in the Middle East takes place as the precursor to a nuclear attack in the film). Being a preteen at the time, I knew I shouldn't have seen the film. Needless to say, I didn't get to "finish" viewing the film until my freshman year in college. Well, 10 years later the film still frightened me. I'm still not sure what the most startling part of the film was. The fact that the movie is so realistic or the silent rising mushroom cloud with the screams in the background. The after effects are intense, to say the least. This film is a classic and will never be surpassed.

Steve Morgan, South Wales UK
I was 14 when Threads was first screened and already a member of CND. I was astounded by how hard hitting and brutal the depiction of the nuclear holocaust would be. I've recently purchased the DVD and it had just a strong impact on me watching it all these years later. Moments that will stay with me forever include woman wetting herself at the sight of the mushroom, poor Ruth reduced to buying dead rats for food and the couple feasting on a dead sheep in hunger and desperation. I was also stunned by the governments attitude to survivors. One female official in the bunker says she has to hang on to the remaining food so she can "force the public to rebuild". It also brought home how vulnerable you would become, as in the case of the Becketts who are murdered in their make-shift shelter for a bag of tinned food. Threads is quite simply THE most harrowing and truly shocking piece of film ever made. Astounding.

AJ, Australia
I remember having seen 'The Day After' when I was about 13 and I saw 'Threads' on the shelf of the local video library and thought it would be more of the same. Threads still moves me when I watch it nowadays and it stands as a strong image of what life would be like if the unthinkable happened..

Barbara, Los Angeles, CA
I remember it vividly. The most chilling, disturbing, disquieting film I have ever seen. I had just moved to the U.S. from England at the time, and for years have been trying to think of the name of the film. I've just ordered a copy on dvd from Amazon UK as it has been released in that format. Get this film - you owe it to your children, your friends and your family to see it. No matter how horrifying, you must see this film.

Derek O'Cain, Canada
When I saw 'Threads' in 1985, I was about 14, and on a band tour of the U.K. - I believe I was in Portsmouth at the time. As a teenager with the thread of an atomic war hanging over us it was more than a little disturbing. Reagan at the time was talking about 'winning'(?) a nuclear war and Gorbachev was not yet on the scene as premier of the USSR. We were pressing uniforms to have them inspected when the attack scene began, and I remember waiting to have mine inspected & having my eyes glued to the screen when the air-raid siren went off, and then the missiles hit. I didn't see it again until 1990 when I found a copy in a video store at home in Vancouver, Canada. It gave me nightmares for over a week. 'Threads', despite its depressing nature, is a horrifying & realistic account of atomic war that is not to be missed!

Tim Thomas
I saw it at lower secondary school at the end of the eighties. It has stayed with me. I had never, until that point realised the full horror of a nuclear weapon, yet having just now seen programmes on Hiroshima, even Threads does not do justice to the full horror. My wife is just too young to have seen it. By the time she was old enough to see it, the Cold War was over. Therein lies an enormous gulf betewen our seperate understandings of the fear about nuclear war. Children today do not live with the fear that someone could drop a 60 Megaton nuclear bomb on them, most would not even know such a bomb when tested, vapourised an entire island off Russia, and left a sheet of glass like material. To them it means nothing. Memory is a fragile thing and soon forgotten in human terms.

Adam Welton
Growing up on my grandmother's farm not ten miles south of the city would have had us right on the edge of the end. It didn't help that during the re-showing of this in 1985 I found a copy of Protect and Survive under a chair. I was 14 and didn't sleep for three months. Thank god for sensible men and women.

Richard Garst
I thought it was pure horror, a wonderfully produced indictment of the utter hollow stupidity of the final conflict on earth. Brilliant, and I have been trying for years to obtain a copy suitable for VCR's or DVD players in the U.S., where I live.

Jennifer
I first watched it when I was 11. To this day, 20 years later, I have nightmares. No matter how many times you see it, your whole world is darkened for a day or 2 after seeing it. Make sure to watch "The Full Monty" afterwards, filmed also in Sheffield, and everything will be alright!!

Sean
Graham, the V bombers were obsolete in 1984. Also, relatively low yield weaponry would be used on military bases.

TC Raymond
Incredible film-making from the 1980s, I was eleven when I first watched Threads and I didn't sleep that night! I picked up the BBC video (second-hand) last week and it still has an amzing power to shock...how did Mick Jackson get that convincing shot of the burning cat? Being an animal lover I'd hate to think any animals were really hurt during the making of this...my girlfriend (something of an amateur film-maker) claims they're shots of a cat having a dust-bath but shot with a red filter and heat distortion on the camera lens to make it look worse...I hope so! Also, very unexpected to see Words And Pictures pop up in such a grim context. Great film, a very rough ride, but one that any sensible film enthusiast should subject himself to.

Mr Graham Bloodworth
As far as I can recall RAF Finningley would have been targeted with a 1 Megaton device not 1 Kiloton, it was a Vulcan base after all !

Sean
Rob, those are the actual PIFs that were scheduled to be broadcast in such a scenarion. All the films are currently being shown at Manchester's Imperial War Museum.

ian - portsmouth uk
i remember watching threads as a nieve 12 year old but BY GOD it scared the living daylights out of me. I suppose because i live only within a couple of miles within the uk's main naval base it was even more poinient, because if the bomb had dropped we would have been right under it. The film itself is by far the best docu-drama ever made and even thinking about it it still chills me to the very marrow. great stuff, and full marks to barry hines for scaring the hell out an entire generation, please show it again, it was fantastic.

Rob Bartholme
the trippy music after the 'Emergency Measure' segments .. were those actual British civil defense productions?

D.P. - USA
I remember watching this movie back in the 1980's on an independent TV station here in the U.S. The movie was preceded by some educational program called "The Nuclear Nightmare". Threads gave me nightmares for years and it's the one movie I'd never watch again because the imagery is just so horrible and disturbing. It makes "The Day After" look like a joke in comparison. Of the few scenes that stick in my mind after all these years are the following; 1. The woman wetting herself when she sees the mushroom cloud. 2. The melting milk bottles. 3. The next generation of kids who are incapable of articulating simple sentences. 4. Blood running down the hospital steps with rats drinking it. 5. The increasing urgency of the news bulletins in the background. Even today, just thinking about the movie gives me the chills.

philip freeman
Knowing I was born in Sheffield, my work mates here in Canada chided me on the film using Sheffield as the location because "it already looks like a bomb has dropped on it!"

Chris
The first time i was allowed to 'stay up' at about age 9, i watched threads. Like most other posts here it scared the life out of me. Got hold of a copy last year quite by chance, the memories came flooding back... Threads is an amazing piece of film, but one that i wish i never watched!

seth Blackthorn
I remember as a 13 yaer old lad seeing this horrific film in science at school.it was the most scaryest thing and at 30 i'm still haunted to this day! And guess what? i've got a copy!!

M.Chatterton .Dorset
I was 13 or 14 at the time and had bad dreams for weeks after. I remember how relative it was seing all the shop windows on the Moor explode and how effective and real it looked.They filmed some scenes near where i lived on devonshire Rd S17 on a tennis court that was transformed in to a millitary safehold. My sister was a croud extra in a demo outside the city hall also i remember but could not spot her in the film. I managed to buy it on video a couple of years ago from a carboot sale here in Dorset as although it was harrowing viewing at the time any sheffielder born and bred can relate to the familier sights and areas involved. Full credit to Barry Hines for writing such a tuff and endearing piece of 80s history ........

Stephen Briggs - Guelph, Ontario, Canada
I went to a rural school just outside Guelph Ontario. I must have been 9yrs old at the time when an announcement came over the PA system explaining that there was a movie on tv that night and we were to ask our parents if we could watch it. This was the only time anything like that had been announced. My father grew up on Hanover St. in Sheffield and insisted that our family watch it. Like most other people commenting here, it scared me to death. Whenever the conversation of a nuclear war comes up with friends, I always make reference to 'Threads'. Oddly enough in January my wife and I settled in the city that put so many disturbing images in my head during my childhood.

Rob Dannatt
It was a history lesson in the 90's when I was shown 'Threads'. Living near Finningley it was quite harrowing to watch it get blown to bits prior to the nuclear bomb hitting Sheffield. Even then the threat of nuclear war wasn't gone so the possibility of it still happening was there. Especially with the Gulf War taking place around that time. Even so it was a brilliant documentary-drama. Just analysised it in fact for a University presentation, and it was as scary then as it still is today.

AL London
I watched threads twice when i was at school having loved Barry Hines books Kez and Looks and Smiles (which i never returned to school and still have with me today) and it haunted me though out my childhood. I remember reading in an RE book about a man who had killed his wife and kids and then himself after watching threads and wondered why it was never shown again. Many years later it was released on video and i borrowed it off one of my tutors. It wasnt as hard to watch as it was when i was younger but parts still of it still scared me.

Rob Cooke
We lived in Ecclesall at the time, and I vividly remember how stunned we all were as a family by the film. I would have been 14 at the time and the fact that the backdrop was our own city and surroundings brought a huge emotional reality to the narrative. We all talked about it at school a lot. I had close friends who lived on Rustlings Road near Hunter's Bar which is where one of the families in Threads lived as I remember. That spooked me out completely. No, I don't remember us stocking up on beans, but at the time Reagan was doing his nut about the 'evil empire' so the idea of political relations falling down and international scenarios getting way out of hand wasn't so far from possibility I remember at the time. I do remember dad having conversations with us one weekend as a result of the film about converting the cellar into a bomb shelter. We were down there doing measurements and a little planning as our cellar had been used as a shelter in the second world war and was already strengthened with RSJ's, but then we kind of reached an agreement (we are a large family of 6 kids) that the pain and suffering for the 'survivors' as the film so graphicaly illustrated, showed that sitting under a mattress for 60 days and craping into a bucket wasn't worth it. Mum decided that we would probably all be better off dieing quickly than the slow lingering illness and ultimate painful death that follows radiation sickness. Remember nightmares about how i would get from school to home again if the bomb did drop. As the families in the narrative, planning in my head how I would get across the city in chaos to home. Scary stuff.

Hugh - Sheffield
I saw threads on Spanish TV whilst siting in a bar in Sitges. I had just moved to Sheffield and it was shown during the christmas hollidays... I looked up and watched my new home being blown up by a nuclear bomb!! I thought it was real!! Still scares me today how close we came to a nuclear war in the early 60s and the effects it would have had on our planet and lives.

Jon - Sheffield
I saw it in a media studies class before I came to live in Sheffield. Dated but incredibly well written. Nerve-wracking to watch!

Wendy - Sheffield
Our class watched it in Firth Park school. People had to leave the classroom, it was too real! On reflection though it was a fantastic reflection of the real fears people had during the cold war. I just wish they would re-release it on dvd!

Gareth Johnstone
I found a copy of Threads on VHS in the Public library in Berkeley, CA, back in 1992. I was dated even then but I managed to spot some Sheffield landmarks.

Jevs Sandham
I remember being made to watch it in secondary school - about 1988/89 and being SCARED TO DEATH. The milkbottle scene is one that particularly sticks in the memory.

Sarah Furniss
I was 11 when Threads was made. I watched it on tv with my family. I can remeber been really frightend and not been able to sleep for weeks. We then watched it again at school a few years later. When the nuclear bomb was dropped I thought "thats not as bad as I remeber". Then the fall out happened. This was really disturbing. Again I was laid in bed for weeks not been able to sleep. I am a mum of two now and still think about what would happen to my family if a Nuclear war was to happen. It makes me feel sick.

Richard Walker
I recently saw this film on video for the first time. I've never seen a film with quite so much impact. The acting is absolutely brilliant with David Brierley and Karen Meagher being particularly impressive. There are several moments, varying from the spectacular to the subtle, that really leave a deep impression. The final scene comes down like a sledgehammer. I nearly burst into tears and sat there in stunned silence with the tape left running for quite some time after. I'd recommend it to anybody, but I would warn them that it's one of the most frightening and disturbing films ever made.

Sean
This was truly groundbreaking television, much better and grittier than the so-called docu-dramas that are shown today. It tapped into the zeitgeist perfectly, apprpriating people's fears that the scenario being played out was inevitable, and serving a wake up call to all to get up and help prevent it actually being so. We really were on the brink and thank God we were dragged back. Still chilling viewing though.....

Tom Sellick III
I, like many people, first saw this movie on tv when I was 12 years old! Oddly, when it aired on tv here in the States, my parents could care less if watched the movie. Only 9 months earlier, I was not allowed to watch The Day After. I had nightmares for years after watching Threads. I grew up in fear that any given morning I could wake up and find civilization as I knew it reduced to a handul of paranoid survivalists! Luckily, 20 years later, that hasn't happened ...yet. I have had Threads on VHS for about 10 years now and watch it from time to time. I've went on to collect a lot of cold war movies and Threads is the most shocking movie in all my collection!

Daryl Carpenter
I first saw Threads in August 2001 - just call me late. I was absolutely gutted and traumitized and barely talked for a week. The images still stay with me, though perhaps in such a nightmarish manner. Even today I can look down my town's main street and imagine staring down a massive cloud of smoke and fire, my blooding turning to ice...

pamela
i was about 12yrs old and the school i attented at the time was used (or at least the playground full of children) was filmed. the school in question is hillsborough nursey and infants. i also recall the shop at the top of our hill was also used in threads. ideal filming ground was the empty houses in hillsborough due to be demolished. some children from our school were also used as extras at infirmary rd hospital because they were not at school on the day of the original filming.

DAVE - SHEFFIELD
I saw "Threads" back in 1987 as part of a Social Education lesson at school and frankly it scared me witless. At a time where,although the first seeds of peace were being sown between the US and the USSR , the thought of "could it happen?" still ran true. With the fact that the story was based around familiar locations in Sheffield and South Yorkshire, it made the story more believable and harrowing. Barry Hines screenplay had included intensive research with the Atomic Research Agency , CND and a number of prominent experts in the field of Nuclear warfare and disarmament. It also was much grittier than the American equivalent "The Day After" which covered the same subject.The use of documentary style filming on 16mm film gave it a reality which also gave a nod to the banned BBC nuclear drama "The War Game" which was deemed too controversial to screen until 1985,but had used the same style of presentation. As a footnote ,Threads has been shown twice in the last couple of months on UK Documentary (satellite and cable) and is probably more graphic now than it seemed 20 years ago. It still sends a shiver down my spine seeing the mushroom cloud rising above The Moor....

Dianne Khan
I remember it well. Part of it ws filmed in The Notty, where my best pal lived, and I seemt o recall one of my teachers from Granville College was an extra. It was chilling and very interesting viewing. Yours homesickly, Dianne (Auckland, NZ)

Keith - 33 Doncaster
Ive never forgotton Threads...The pictures of Finngley Airbase being re-inforced with American Phamtons, the very same airbase that is soon to open as an airport. Its amazing what changes have occured during a few years. People are quick to forget how close we came to the brink. I recently got hold of a copy of threads from ebay. It was just as I rembered - Spine-chilling. Please show it again!

Steve Hall
I remember Threads in parts, but the main thing I remember is the chilling feeling I got when I watched it. It was so realistic at the time, especially as it was filmed locally and everything was familiar.