It is hard to describe to a modern audience, with the huge media options now, how impactful Threads was when it was released.
When it aired on TV here, about a month after it was shown in the UK. There was already a massive buzz in the media about it. I was in high school at the time. Everyone, and I mean everyone watched it. Everyone was pretty shell shocked by it. What was the point of planning for a future with that to look forward to?
Sure, we had all grown up during the Cold War, we all knew on some level about the possible total destruction, but Threads brought it into reality like nothing before or since.
Most disaster movies/TV/games that cover nukes either end The Day After or begin years after the fall.
Threads is pretty unique in covering the strike and the decades that follow. The documentary style just reinforces the bleakness of it all.
After saying all that, I still think it is something everyone should see, once, as the nukes are still in their silos to this day...
I love the post-apocalypse genre, but this film made me genuinely terrified of both the immediate and long-term aftermath of a nuclear war. The slow death due to radiation poisoning in particular.
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