Threads - BBC drama from the 80s

[BlueSeagull]

I had to watch it at school, for some reason. Scared the crap out of me at the time.

Yeah I remember watching it in school too, was the scariest thing I had seen as a 14 year old, some of the kids actually left the class to throw up (we laughed at them obviously!) but a very powerful film.

 

[Colossal Squid]

Impressive memory, its all come flooding back to me. We watched them at junior school. One of them drowned in a slurry pit, one fell of the back of a tractor. The other government safety film I remember was about a boy called Robbie who, along with his friends, played on a railway line. Particularly graphic without showing him getting killed.

There was another one about the railways where a sports day is organised on the railway line with events such as "break the fence and run across the tracks". Naturally many horrific deaths occur.

I'm assuming that kids today don't get subjected to these sorts of films but oh my days did they shit me up as a nipper

 

[Falkor]

anyone have an idea what the documentary is called going to look for it on the net

 

[Colossal Squid]

anyone have an idea what the documentary is called going to look for it on the net

Um, it was called THREADS.

I downloaded a copy but it seems the whole thing is available (in 12 parts) on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQo0BQM3OlQ

 

[Falkor]

ta mate downloading it now, will watch it after the formula 1

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

May seem a bit farfetched now but we really had that nuclear fear back then and it really wasn't that many years ago.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Does anyone remember watching "The Day After" which was an American TV movie also based on a nuclear holocaust ? This was shown on TV here about 6 months after "Threads" was first transmitted.

 

[brakespear]

Wasn't "When the Wind Blows" meant to be an old Sussex couple?

Yep, just east up the coast from Brighton iirc.

As for that government farm safety film, I saw that whilst on holiday in Wales and it scared the shit out of me and still gives me shudders when I remember it now. Seem to remember the wordt one for me was a girl who drank weedkiller and then you just saw her bedroom window at nigth and heard her screaming

 

[Beach Hut]

Shoestring was the Daddy of the 80s drama

 

[Lady Whistledown]

ta mate downloading it now, will watch it after the formula 1

So what did you think?

The bits I remember in the main are the melting skin stuff and the deformed baby born to its apocalypse-surviving mother (can't remember if it was born alive or dead but it was grim either way).

I got to watch it in Year 9 English lessons and to this day I have absolutely no idea why. It wasn't really related to the lesson, and by this stage (would have been about 1990/91 I guess) we were hardly living in fear of a nuclear holocaust in the same way as we were in the early 1980s.

 

[Normal Rob]

Does anyone remember watching "The Day After" which was an American TV movie also based on a nuclear holocaust ? This was shown on TV here about 6 months after "Threads" was first transmitted.

blood runs cold...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VG2aJyIFrA

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Not seen the The Day After but the consensus seems to be said that it was a bit sanitised and watered down for the sensitive US market, by comparison to Threads.

 

[brakespear]

I got to watch it in Year 9 English lessons and to this day I have absolutely no idea why. It wasn't really related to the lesson, and by this stage (would have been about 1990/91 I guess) we were hardly living in fear of a nuclear holocaust in the same way as we were in the early 1980s.

And, funnily enough, in 1984 when I was in what they call Y9 now the only program I saw in any lessons was an entire series of Blackadder in History

 

[Colossal Squid]

And, funnily enough, in 1984 when I was in what they call Y9 now the only program I saw in any lessons was an entire series of Blackadder in History

I'd have loved to have watched Blackadder at school.

Lucky