Threads — A Review.

1st October, 2023: the introduction.

I have something of a confession to make.

I have not seen a film since 5th August of this year.

And I didn’t write about it.

I think I have my reasons.

The main one?

A lack of time: filling in paperwork, job hunting, nephew sitting, writing quizzes and TV review … 

Time is a resource I never learnt to manage: and one that I find slips through my fingers faster than I can catch it.

That’s always the way, I think … 

At any rate … ?

A couple of months ago, I saw a film, and didn’t review it.

Which is a shame.

1984’s Threads is possibly the most powerful film I’ve ever seen.

~≈☢️≈~

1st October, 2023: Threads.

Directed by Mick Jackson, written by Barry Hines, first aired on BBC Two, and set in what was then the modern day, Threads opens with a shot of a spider, spinning a web: and a narration from Paul Vaughan.

Reminding us that normal life depends on a web of people: all interconnected, and all depending on each others skills.

The camera shifts: to a long shot of Sheffield, on 5th March.

With the sounds of jets flying over a car occupied by Jimmy and Ruth (Reece Dinsdale and Karen Meagher), a young couple with their entire life ahead of them: trying to work out whether life in country would be better than life in town.

A month later?

We shift, again.

To a news piece playing away on the TV: showing a female newsreader (Lesley Judd) that tells of increasing Soviet manoeuvres in Iran.

The TV is in the local pub: and shows us that the news is being seriously ignored by Ruth and Jimmy: and Ruth tells her long suffering boyfriend her news.

She’s expecting his child.

And … ?

Tells him it’s not exactly the end of the world.

Three days later, and whilst worsening news of the international situation plays in the background?

8th May sees Jimmy having dinner with his family: defiantly telling his mother and father that he and Ruth are going to marry, and bring up their children in a home of their own.

With Jimmy’s father reminding Jimmy that now’s not a good time to marry.

There is a recession on, after all.

~≈☢️≈~

The scene shifts, once again.

To an inter-title that reminds us Sheffield — where Jimmy, Ruth, and their families, live — is the fourth largest city in the UK: and that the nearest military targets are a NATO airbase: and an RAF communications centre.

Then tells us the date is Thursday, 11th May: and that Ruth’s family are dues to meet Jimmy’s.

Whilst the news, happily burbling away in the background … ?

Telling of the worsening situation in Iran.

And that a US submarine … has vanished whilst on patrol in the area.

Things are slowly getting worse.

~≈☢️≈~

Now … 

What did I make of Threads: of a film that some argue is the scariest thing ever made?

What did I made of it?   And what do I know about it?

There’s several things to unpack.

Firstly?

You’ll notice I’m referring to Threads as ‘a film’, when it originally aired on TV.

I’m not sure if drawing comparisons with Kneale’s The Year of the Sex Olympics is a good idea: but it, like Threads, was a feature length drama designed for TV.

But could so easily, given its length, have been released directly to cinemas.

In much the same way that many Netflix films are released to various cinema chains: in order to count as films.

Were Threads to be made, today?

I suspect it would be made by BBC Film, and released to cinemas.

So, while I’m very aware Threads aired on BBC 2, I can’t help but think of it as a film.

~≈☢️≈~

There’s also the production side of things.

A couple of things stick in my mind

For one thing, Threads director Mick Jackson — the man who later directed The Bodyguard — had made a documentary for a BBC series called QED: a documentary called “A Guide to Armageddon”, that explained what would happen in the UK, if a one megaton nuclear bomb exploded over Saint Paul’s Cathedral, in London.

It turns out Hornchurch — only a few miles from where I live — would be destroyed by that bomb.

It’s an unnerving piece: with calm, unhysterical, narration from Ludovic Kennedy.

Directing that piece?

Meant that Jackson did lots of research into the effects of a nuclear explosion: something that he, and writer Barry Hines, were able to use for Threads.

Hines, himself?

Had a reputation for writing socially realistic work: his script for Kes, provided the backbone for what some call the best British movie ever made.

The sets and locations for Threads?

If I’ve understood the documentaries that came with my blu-ray copy of Threads, the producers got permission from Sheffield Council: to use an area around Hillsborough Stadium as a location, an area that was due to be demolished.

Got permission to use it, before and after that demolition.

And used assorted scrap cars, petroleum gel, and fake corpses.

The end result?

Was that the explosion and its aftereffects, were as realistic, as accurate, as possible.

~≈☢️≈~

There’s possibly more I could tell you, there.

But I should maybe shift focus.

To my memories of the times … and how I felt about Threads.

I can remember the early 1980s.

And remember that there was deep concern about a possible nuclear war.

After all, the Petrov Incident — where the Soviet Union almost attacked the US as a result of equipment failure, an incident stopped only because the Soviet officer on duty double-checked the kit, before passing the news up the chain of command — took place in 1983.

That?

That, and other incidents, were frequent enough.

Add incidents like that to the political protest organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and by the women of Greenham Common?

I was oblivious to it.

I saw it go past, but was mostly oblivious.

I was in my early teens, as I recall, and remember thinking people would be mad to start a nuclear war: especially as people knew about the damage done at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Oblivious or not, I knew what was happening.

I knew there was a threat of a very messy kind of war.

But I was more aware, not of the threat of war, but of the protests and the media attention the idea of that war was getting.

I knew Threads — and its US equivalent, The Day After — was around, even though I missed it.

I knew about When The Wind Blows, as well.

The best I could do?

Was buying a copy of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s song, “Two Tribes”: I fell in love with that song.

It’s still a good tune: but the fact it was picking up on the feel of the time, the possibility of a destructive war?

Went as far over my head as everything else.

So, that obliviousness was what got me thinking I should see Threads.

To catch up on something, something important, that I’d missed at the time.

That’s why I watched Threads: and ended up, unnerved.

In part, by the little things that caught my eye.

Or ear, I should say.

At least two familiar voices caught my attention.

One of the news readers featured in Threads was played by children’s TV presenter, Lesley Judd.

I, like so many others, knew her from the educational kids show, Blue Peter.

Hearing a voice telling us about nuclear explosions in the Middle East, a voice we usually heard telling us how to build models of Tracy Island?

Was strange.

Another voice?

Was that of Ed Bishop — Ed Straker, from UFO — as the US President: offering grim news about the situation … instead of warning the staff of SHADO about alien invaders.

Those little things — for me — added to the unnerving feel of Threads.

There was another voice, as well.

Those of us of a certain age will only recognise the voice of Patrick Allen from his one appearance on Blackadder … and also from his narration of the Government’s Protect and Survive Information films.

At least … will know him through the re-recorded clips he did for Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Two Tribes”.

So hearing the original Protect and Survive used in Threads?

Hearing Allen’s authoritative tone, telling us to tag dead bodies, and what the fallout warnings will sound like, bereft of the ZTT bass line?

Something I regarded as a fairly innocent, mildly satirical, dance tune, being used in its original form?   

And in a situation it would have been heard?

Is not so much unnerving as downright scary.

~≈☢️≈~

There is possibly so much more I can add.

Much, much more.

One thing that caught my eye?

About forty-nine minutes into Threads, as the bomb drops, and the panic starts?

One woman — played by the uncredited Anne Sellors — wets herself.

Literally, wets herself.

Which is something I know people do in times of extreme fear and panic.

It’s something I think I’ve only ever seen depicted — as a very subtle wet patch — in just one horror film: and I couldn’t even tell you what that film was.

Of everything that told me Threads was a very different film?

There are many things: the realism, the accurate depiction of normal life, the way the bomb explosions were done.

Hell, the ending: where the main character’s daughter sees her newborn child, a child that’s hidden from us?

With the camera freezing on her despairing face?

Are among the things that mean Threads is a film that will stay with me for a long time.

Especially that.

Especially those few seconds.

Those few seconds, of one woman wetting herself in fear?

That’s going to stay with me.

~≈☢️≈~

There are more things I could add.

So much more that I could add.

But I’ve said plenty, already.

So I can only close with a few last words, and questions.

Should I urge people to watch Threads?

Should I urge you to watch Threads?

I would say yes, to both: with a few conditions.

I think politicians should watch Threads.

Yes: I think the world is more in danger from climate change.

I think everyone need to do their bit to help, there: before the world gets destroyed by the ever increasing number of wildfires we have seen over the past few years.

We, and our leaders, need to work on that.

But, yes, I feel politicians should see Threads: so they know what will happen to their constituents, if they launch a nuclear attack.

Should you see Threads?

Yes.

At least, a qualified yes.

Threads is a very well made film: one that is a powerful, truthful, accurate warning about what happens, if a bomb is dropped on people like you and me.

It’s well made: but also not an easy film to watch.

It’s something I found deeply distressing.

Given that?

I’ve talked to a few people about Threads.

And found that view confirmed.

Most of us who have seen it?

Have found it watchable, informative and deeply disturbing, at the same time.

And those most deeply affected, were those who watched Threads whilst pregnant.

They’re unsurprisingly affected, given the ending of the piece.

I would still recommend seeing Threads.

But urge you to give deep thought to doing so: especially if you’re pregnant, or have mental health issues.

Threads is a very good film to watch.

But not an easy film to see.

Threads.

★★★★⁺