Threads (1984)
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DIRECTOR: Mick Jackson

STARRING: Karen Meagher, Reece Dinsdale

Films made for television are widely discounted as inferior, often assumed that with heightened censorship comes childish derivatives or tawdry feel-goods.  Yet Mick Jackson’s bleak apocalypse film, ‘Threads,’ was aired September 23, 1984 to an unknowing Britain, simultaneously shocking and depressing an entire country.  In many ways, ‘Threads,’ can be seen as England’s response to the cinematic disaster craze, most notably the nuclear holocaust sub-genre, mainly films like ‘The Day After,’ or ‘Testament’.  But where many of these other films depict the struggles of post-apocalyptic survival, ‘Threads,’ obliterates even the most meager hopes for its characters, plunging viewers into a hellish realm of eternal despair.  Written by Barry Hines, who seems to have a slight proclivity towards both aviculture and the hopeless, was also behind the British classic, ‘Kes’ (1969).  Jackson’s ‘Threads,’ is the dreary, toxic wind-swept, and soot stained paradigm for effective feature television, didactic, yet haunting, infecting audiences with disturbing imagery like radioactive fallout, long after the credits roll.

‘Threads,’ is most successful in its accurate depiction of nuclear war’s effects on a sampling of Sheffield’s bourgeois, most too wrapped up in their daily frivolities to consider the possibility of bomb-fall and its complete and total annihilation.  What begins as kitchen-sink neo-realism, not uncommon for British film of that time, quickly becomes a horrid account of groveling survival, continually prodding the audience, asking what would be the point, to survive in a ruinous, diseased wasteland.  ‘Threads,’ is structured similar to a documentary, with an opening shot of a spider spinning its web to a voiceover that acts as a preface, binding the film’s title to its content.  Appearing almost like a nature documentary initially, ‘Threads,’ soon begins the tortured tale of Sheffield and several of its unfortunate inhabitants.

The philosophy behind, ‘Threads,’ is that we all exist within a complex web; a society.  Intricate relationships bind us to our neighbors, our cities, our countries, and ultimately to the world.  As a component of this global web, we share the joys of success, but also the horrors of mistake or failure.  ‘Threads,’ explores the darkest natures of this web, graphically showing how escape is impossible when existing within the fabric of society, sealing our fates.

While perhaps not the ideal date movie, ‘Threads,’ is essential for those morbid individuals convinced the end is near, as a relatively accurate hypothesis of nuclear aftermath.  Jackson’s picture undoubtedly ranks amongst the most depressing experiences forged onto celluloid, a disaster movie bleaker than any other.  According to ‘Threads,’ if you’re preparing for the apocalypse, you can just stop while you’re ahead because we’re all doomed.  Read an in depth analysis of ‘Threads’ at Seance Of Cinema.