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End of the World Nuke filums

not-bono-ever

not-bono-ever

meh
Not sure if this is like out there already, but lets have an end of the world / Nuclear horror filums list to cheer me up

Currently watching Testament from 1983. It comes across as low budget but it kinda works in an afternoon telly sort of way. There's young Kevin Costner for a cameo. Its about a small California middle class ville that is seeing the crumbling of things as a result of a nuke horror elsewhere in the USA. Not massively remembered these days. No special effects and stuff, but not worth less for that.

gimme your nominations and a brief take on why they are decent/ shite. There are some big well known ones likely discussed at length in this forum over the past couple of years, but feel free to post your take on them anyway

 
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planet-of-the-apes.%7Bformat%7D
 
Miracle Mile. Anthony Greene from ER accidentally intercepts a panicked phone call from someone on an army base screaming that nukes have been launched. He sets out across LA to try find his girlfriend and get out of the city...but as news gets out, mass panic sets in.

Only saw it once, years ago, but I remember it being very good.
 
Great thread! Anarcho-preppers in da house!

And 'Threads' - obviously. Great almost documentary style, absolutely no-punches-pulled of the horror of it either. Gave me teenage nightmares. Re-watched the other day in light of WW3 chatter and was still horrifying.

 
A bit left-field but hits the brief i think

m.imdb.com

WarGames (1983) - IMDb

WarGames: Directed by John Badham. With Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Ally Sheedy. A young man finds a back door into a military central computer in which reality is confused with game-playing, possibly starting World War III.
m.imdb.com m.imdb.com
 
LDC said:
Great thread! Anarcho-preppers in da house!

And 'Threads' - obviously. Great almost documentary style, absolutely no-punches-pulled of the horror of it either. Gave me teenage nightmares. Re-watched the other day in light of WW3 chatter and was still horrifying.

Click to expand...

When people talk about Threads they usually focus on how it made them feel, which is understandable as it's an absolutely devastating film. The first time I watched it I just sat in silence for about 10 minutes afterwards as I put myself back together then spent days feeling like shit with it stuck on my head.

But there's so many great bits in the film. Amongst the in your face devastation there's a lot of subtlety that adds to the overall effect.

Like when
the looters come out of Beckett's house (leaving the murders to your imagination) and they're shot by the soldiers, who take the food they've looted, casually open a packet of crisps then just grumble they don't like prawn cocktail as they go on their way unmoved.

Or the way both Jimmy and Alison just stop being in the film after the bomb. What exactly happens to them is never explained. They were outside when the bomb went off so cease to be.

It's one of those films where everything just comes together.
 
The Day After (1983) - I remember this being the film all my fellow pupils were talking about the day after it was shown on UK TV, it properly scared us. Not helped by the fact they installed a nuclear air raid siren on a huge pole in our school playground around the same time, despite us being in a small sleepy village.

When The Wind Blows (1986) is a classic which i'm sure you've all seen.

More pre-apocalypse than post-apocalypse but - Fail Safe (1964) is very good, similar theme to Dr Strangelove but done as a drama rather than a comedy [both were based on Peter George's novel Red Alert ]
 
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Spandex said:
When people talk about Threads they usually focus on how it made them feel, which is understandable as it's an absolutely devastating film. The first time I watched it I just sat in silence for about 10 minutes afterwards as I put myself back together then spent days feeling like shit with it stuck on my head.

But there's so many great bits in the film. Amongst the in your face devastation there's a lot of subtlety that adds to the overall effect.

Like when
the looters come out of Beckett's house (leaving the murders to your imagination) and they're shot by the soldiers, who take the food they've looted, casually open a packet of crisps then just grumble they don't like prawn cocktail as they go on their way unmoved.

Or the way both Jimmy and Alison just stop being in the film after the bomb. What exactly happens to them is never explained. They were outside when the bomb went off so cease to be.

It's one of those films where everything just comes together.
Click to expand...

Yeah I 'love' those bits. I think it shows very well how normalised things become so very quickly, like that shooting looters scene. Or how thin the veneer of civilisation and control is sometimes when things get deperate.
 
Not an 'end of the world' nuke film, but in the same ball park, is Barefoot Gen. An anime based on a loosely autobiographical manga about a young boy in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. The cartoon style and upbeat Gen only amplify the horror of the situation.

 
not-bono-ever said:
With these movies, what is constant is there ain’t no cavalry coming over the hill to fix everything and getting back to normal. The blast and pyrotechnics are the high point, it always goes downhill for the survivors . As you might expect
Click to expand...

One of the things I really appreciated about Threads was the timeline as it jumps foward a number of years (2, 5, 15 or something?) and shows how people are surviving and having to sort things out without any easy answers/saviour.
 
Spandex said:
That's the cover used on a recent re-release of the film. I thought SPOILERS! when I saw it. But I figure after 55 years we all know the ending by now. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!

(I know it's not really in the spirit of the thread, but since it's The Best Film Ever Made I posted it up anyway)
Click to expand...
I have the DVD of the 50s and 70s versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (both great but I prefer the 50s one), and the dvd menu screen of the 70s one is the punchline of the film. OK, I’d seen it before, but really, come on! At least make some allowance for story telling!
 
www.imdb.com

The Bed Sitting Room (1969) ⭐ 6.1 | Comedy, Sci-Fi

1h 30m | PG
www.imdb.com www.imdb.com

Spike Milligan paints a probably accurate picture of how small c conservative English society will carry on post bomb

Here's the BBC in action for example
the_bed_sitting_room.jpg

Strong UK familiar faces cast of the era
Top satire, based on his play.
Something lost in films today on the whole I reckon, the influence of the theatre
----
TRIVIA:
  • Promoters acknowledged the film’s limited commercial prospects by issuing a poster with the tagline “we’ve got a BOMB* on our hands” and the footnote (“*BOMB – a motion picture so brilliantly funny it goes over most people’s heads”).
  • The film bombed so hard, in fact, that director Richard Lester could not find work for four years afterwards, and when he returned to movies he toned down the absurdism of his early films and worked in a mainstream idiom, returning with the action-comedy The Three Musketeers (1973) and going on to direct blockbusters like Superman II (1980).
 
LDC said:
Great thread! Anarcho-preppers in da house!

And 'Threads' - obviously. Great almost documentary style, absolutely no-punches-pulled of the horror of it either. Gave me teenage nightmares. Re-watched the other day in light of WW3 chatter and was still horrifying.

Click to expand...


aye at the start of the Ukraine war thought this would be an interesting watch

bleakest fucking thing i've ever seen :/ is good mind
 
This UK film is great if you haven't seen it, again more pre-bomb thriller than post apocalyptic horror - Seven Days To Noon (1950)
A scientist from one of the UK's research development sites steals a nuclear device and threatens to explode it in central London.
 
Spandex said:
Not an 'end of the world' nuke film, but in the same ball park, is Barefoot Gen. An anime based on a loosely autobiographical manga about a young boy in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. The cartoon style and upbeat Gen only amplify the horror of the situation.

Click to expand...

Double bill it with when the wind blows.
 
ska invita said:
www.imdb.com

The Bed Sitting Room (1969) ⭐ 6.1 | Comedy, Sci-Fi

1h 30m | PG
www.imdb.com www.imdb.com

Spike Milligan paints a probably accurate picture of how small c conservative English society will carry on post bomb

Here's the BBC in action for example
the_bed_sitting_room.jpg

Strong UK familiar faces cast of the era
Top satire, based on his play.
Something lost in films today on the whole I reckon, the influence of the theatre
----
TRIVIA:
  • Promoters acknowledged the film’s limited commercial prospects by issuing a poster with the tagline “we’ve got a BOMB* on our hands” and the footnote (“*BOMB – a motion picture so brilliantly funny it goes over most people’s heads”).
  • The film bombed so hard, in fact, that director Richard Lester could not find work for four years afterwards, and when he returned to movies he toned down the absurdism of his early films and worked in a mainstream idiom, returning with the action-comedy The Three Musketeers (1973) and going on to direct blockbusters like Superman II (1980).
Click to expand...
Fabulous film!
 
LDC said:
Great thread! Anarcho-preppers in da house!

And 'Threads' - obviously. Great almost documentary style, absolutely no-punches-pulled of the horror of it either. Gave me teenage nightmares. Re-watched the other day in light of WW3 chatter and was still horrifying.

Click to expand...

Ah I see someone has beaten me to it. This film should be made compulsory viewing for all world leaders.

Edit to add: watching that trailer made me burst into tears. Fuck is it still powerful.
 
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