1. Threads (1984)
In 1983, a film about nuclear holocaust entitled The Day After was broadcast in America. The American public collectively crapped their pants at the depiction of nuclear war on their screen. Yet the film seemed to give out the message - nuclear war would be hell, but we would be alright in the end eventually. Threads was the British answer to The Day After. It deals with the lives of several families in the city of Sheffield and the effect a nuclear war has upon them. Compared to The Day After, there isn't even a shred of hope in Threads. Not one iota. First of all the city is physically wrecked by the bomb killing millions of people and creating a nuclear winter. People die horribly of radiation poisoning even though they have diligently copied the advice in the Protect and Survive booklets and TV and radio broadcasts. Rats become the main source of food. Survivors are forced to try and harvest the year's pathetic bounty. The whole of society suffers collective Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Law and Order is virtually non-existent and the police and army kill dissenters and trouble makers in the blink of an eye. The proposed authorities die painfully of suffocation due the debris falling upon their safe haven and burying them alive. There is terrible chaos and the hospitals are full - having to resort to amputating limbs without pain relief. Fast forward a number of years later. The population total has shrunk to Middle Ages level of about 4-5 million. The English language has declined into a series of grunts and squawks. The film ends with a teenage girl giving birth to a mutant baby. There is no hope for anyone in the film and Threads is so bleak, it may be severely off putting for the casual viewer. You have to prepare yourself to watch this film. What makes it so bleak is that the film is shot in a documentary style with a scary voiced narrator and facts about the war are written across the screen. This all serves to heighten the innate despair of Threads and makes it a total downer of a film that will leave you feeling bleak as hell after watching it.