THE DAY AFTER (1983)

"What's going on? Do you understand what's going on in this world?"

"Yeah. Stupidity...has a habit of getting it's way."

As the story goes, THE DAY AFTER was a huge cultural TV event when it was originally broadcast (on ABC) just a few days before Thanksgiving on November 20, 1983.  It was reportedly watched by over 100 million Americans.  Which, considering there was only 233 million Americans around back then, is pretty goddamn impressive!

Opening with some documentary style footage of American military guys talking really super serious while onboard an Strategic Air Command aircraft, the story then shifts to the lives of various simple Americans living their lives in the towns along the border of Kansas and Missouri.  You got Jason Robards as doctor with a loving family; Steve Guttenberg as a student; JoBeth Williams as a nurse; John Cullum as the head of a family that lives on a large farm and John Lithgow as a professor.  For 45 minutes or so, we're brought up to speed on these people's lives.  The whole time there's various news reports playing in the background talking about the growing tensions with Russia.  People are scared, but they go about their normal lives and then...BOOM!  Nuclear missiles start flying out of the nearby silos and all Hell breaks loose.  People start rioting and trying to get out of town, but before you can say "radioactive baboon testicles" the Russian missiles reach their targets and it's "Goodbye, Kansas."

Everything blows the fuck up and the people that are left after the smoke clears are all fucked up.  Not as fucked up as the survivors in the next year's THREADS, but still screwed all the same.  Radiation sickness, lack of food, lawlessness, no shelter from the elements, no more Netflix.  It's Hell on Earth, but unfortunately since this is a made-for-network-TV movie we never see much more than a mass grave and unwashed people with their hair falling out.  The story is dark, but the events shown on-screen are tame.

Still, it's a good movie and a very interesting glimpse into early 1980's American culture.  Especially, if you go online and look for videos of all of the original commercial breaks shown during the original broadcast and then watch the ABC News special that showed immediately after the movie.  Hosted by Ted Koppel and featuring Carl Sagan, then current Secretary of State George Shultz,  former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, William F. Buckley, Jr., former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, General Brent Scowcroft  and Elie Wiesel.  It's a fascinating watch and the one female audience members question (around the 45 minute mark) is even more important today than it was in 1983.

Above average acting (even by Steve Guttenberg), restrained script, mediocre direction, an unwed woman arguing with her teenage sister about her diaphragm, bland camerawork, cool explosion scenes (I loved the skeleton effects), disappointing ending.  THE DAY AFTER isn't the best nuclear war movie ever, but it does play an interesting part in world history in that it helped bring attention to the subjects of nuclear war and nuclear winter.  Definitely worth watching.

If you need me, I'll be in my fallout shelter wearing my Church of the Children of Atom robes and praying to Atom that HBO will make a high-budget, CHERNOBYL-level miniseries based on the Robert McCammon masterpiece, "Swan Song".

Maybe I'm giving the filmmakers too much credit, but when the silo doors opened up and the nuclear missiles started blasting off, they showed this white horse and it brought to mind how in the Bible, Revelation 6:1-2 says: "And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.  And I saw, and behold a white horse..."

THREADS (1984)

Well, if you're looking to get completely bummed out then look no further than THREADS. Originally aired on Sept. 23rd, 1984 on BBC Two, the first 40 minutes or so lulls the viewer in with the everyday life stories of a few people in Sheffield, England. Behind their stories, you see news reports and people talking about the growing hostilities between the US and Russia. Before long it's all people can talk about and there's a rush on stores.  Tensions flare. Known dissidents are rounded up by the police and jets fly constantly overhead. Then the bombs start falling and all Hell breaks loose.  Even though I knew it was coming I still found the nuclear destruction scenes to be very emotional.

Some of the main characters die or disappear during the chaos and the ones that are left are completely fucked. Radiation poison, nuclear winter, no food, sickness, lawlessness.  It's Hell on Earth. I'm not going to give it all away, but the story carries on into the nuclear winter that follows the war and it's just shit on top of shit the entire way. No happy ending for these poor bastards.

Told in a very dry documentary-style THREADS is a total bummer, but you can't pulls your eyes away from the screen.  The entire thing was masterfully done.  It's an unforgettable experience.  In fact, I wish somebody would make a THREADS television series! If done properly, it would be awesome!  (Or how about a show...hour long episodes.  Each episode about a different person.  Each episode tells the last hour or two of that persons life leading up to worldwide nuclear war.  Pretty much everybody dies at the end of each episode.  No connecting stories.  No cliffhanger endings.  Just story, then death and destruction.  The End.  Countless stories.  Most of the episodes would just end with a white light.  They never even knew what happened.  Or they would be at work.  Or at home.  Fucking.  Playing Scrabble.  Playing Scrabble while fucking.)

Highly recommended.  Double-feature it with WORLD WAR III or THE DAY AFTER.  If you need me, I'll be in my fallout shelter reading Robert McCammon's "Swan Song".