It’s a good day to be a horror movie fan as a film once deemed too disturbing for television becomes available to stream once again in the UK.
Threads, a 1984 British apocalyptic war drama television film, is ready and waiting to be watched on BBC iPlayer from today, but the joint production by the BBC, Nine Network and Western-World Television Inc certainly isn’t for the faint hearted.
The movie, which stars former Coronation Street and Emmerdale actor Reece Dinsdale, was first shown on the Beeb back in September 1984 but didn’t grace our screens again for almost 20 years following its initial broadcast.
Threads provides a chilling depiction of nuclear war and its devastating effects in Britain, specifically focusing on the city of Sheffield in Northern England. The storyline revolves around two families caught in the crossfire as tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union escalate into warfare.
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BBC)
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BBC)
As NATO and the Warsaw Pact engage in a nuclear exchange, the film portrays the medical, economic, social, and environmental fallout of nuclear war. Produced on a budget of £400,000 (equivalent to £1,290,611 in 2023), Threads was groundbreaking in its portrayal of a nuclear winter. It has been lauded as “a film which comes closest to representing the full horror of nuclear war and its aftermath, as well as the catastrophic impact that the event would have on human culture.”
“It wasn’t until I saw Thread that I found that something on screen could make me break out in a cold, shivering sweat and keep me in that condition for 20 minutes, followed by weeks of depression and anxiety,” Peter Bradshaw wrote in his review of Threads in the Guardian in 2014.
As the film returned to BBC iPlayer this month, horror fans were quick to warn others ahead of viewing. One penned over the weekend: “I watched Threads on iPlayer last night and really wish I hadn’t. Even more grim than I remembered it being when it first came out.”
“Do yourself a favour, don’t watch Threads on iPlayer if you don’t want to be horrifically disturbed for the rest of your life,” another wrote, with a third adding: “Threads. If you haven’t seen it, it’s currently on the BBC iPlayer. Saw it in primary school, mid to late 80s. Horrific. You have to watch The Road afterwards, to bring yourself back up.”
Threads has drawn comparisons to the earlier Academy Award-winning programme The War Game (1966) produced in the United Kingdom two decades prior and its contemporary counterpart The Day After, a 1983 ABC television film depicting a similar scenario in the United States. In 1985, it received seven BAFTA nominations and won for Best Single Drama, Best Design, Best Film Cameraman, and Best Film Editor.
The description for the film on BBC iPlayer reads: “Contains some strong language, graphic violence and disturbing scenes. Grim drama telling the story of a nuclear strike on Britain through the eyes of two families, tracing the events leading up to the war and the decade of devastation that follows.”
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