Threads (Complete and Uncut!) 1984 DVD (Region One - Playable in the US, Canada, Mexico, etc.) Color. Complete. Uncut. Dangerous.
Starring: Karen Meager, Michael O'Hagan, Reece Dinsdale, David Brierly, Rita May, Jane Hazelgrove, Ruth Holden, Phil Rose. Written by Barry Hines. Directed by Mick Jackson.
Hideously plausible when first broadcast in 1984, this BBC TV docu-drama is a terrifying might-have-been about the probable aftermath of a nuclear attack which remains horribly pertinent. Showing the after-effects of World War III on the United Kingdom by concentrating on two Sheffield families linked by an unplanned pregnancy, it illustrates the scientific, political, medical and social consequences of the severing of the many vital connective "threads" that support a Western society. Grim but compulsive viewing, this rare film accomplishes a great deal without the distraction of spectacle, picking through all the melted milk bottles and firing squad traffic wardens to find the human horror at the heart of it all. Simply devastating.
"Threads works on the viewer with a peculiar power: one finds oneself horrified, fascinated, numbed, provoked, unsettled, made restless. Its power may be the effect of its oscillation between form and content being so heavily weighted toward the pole of content—in this case, that threat of nuclear destruction which cannot help but feel 'real'--so that we are unable to relax into Threads as 'just' a movie." - Professor Andrew Bartlett of UCLA