Threads/Nightmare Fuel

When you watch a movie that realistically depicts the decay of humanity after a nuclear attack, there's no doubt that there will be some nightmares. This is basically Nightmare Fuel : The Movie...

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• There is a certain element of this... delightful piece of television which has been overlooked in its nightmare-enabling capabilities, and unjustly so, because neglecting to mention just how absolutely terrifying it is would be very remiss of this wiki: ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE WHOLE FILM. It traumatises people who first saw it to this very day, and considering it was first broadcast in 1984 and was then not broadcast again until 2003, that speaks volumes.
• For many Britons (especially those who live in/hear Sheffield), this film hit close to home and it hit hard. Those Oop North are so used to seeing New York/LA/Tokyo/London blown up it doesn't affect them, but when it's a city in Yorkshire ...
• It was the British Government's Protect and Survive public information films that the film used - not parodied, as what the film presents is pretty much what we were expected to do if the five-minute warning went off. Two of the short films are available here and here; excerpts include "If anyone dies while you are kept in your fallout room, move the body to another room in the house ... If you have had a body in the house for more than five days, and if it is safe to go outside, then you should bury the body for the time being in a trench, or cover it with earth, and mark the spot of the burial". Terrifying in their own right, even more so if you consider the circumstances in which the government would have assented to broadcast these.
• When Sheffield is hit we see humans on fire- and a cat's face horrifically distorted
• The deathly silence, when the flash of heat is sweeping through the city and we see everything melting and Mr Kemp desperately trying to put out his burning wife. Then the blast hits and everything is destroyed.
• During the nuclear attack sequence, the panicked screaming of everyone on the streets in Sheffield is very haunting. Especially the shrieking that can be heard during the shot of the mushroom cloud over Sheffield after nearby RAF Finningley is hit.
  • There was a woman that was so scared that she wet herself.
  • Apparantly the artifical method they used to recreate the mushroom cloud lead to actual genuine panic on the streets. Could've been a highly disturbing bit of Enforced Method Acting had they been rolling the film...
• When Ruth walks around in the rubble after the explosion. The only sound is coming from the wind, and she sees burnt corpses, a lost child looking for his mother, and a delusional woman who is holding her clearly burnt baby.
  • The image on the main page, of that delusional woman, may perhaps be one of the most haunting still images ever shot of a rehearsed pose.
• When Ruth goes to a makeshift hospital. It is extremely unhygenic, and the people there have devastating injuries. Since there is no anesthesia, the people who are operated on are screaming in pain.
• When Ruth has to give birth to her daughter, Jane, and cut the umbilical cord with her teeth.
• When you realize that all the education that the next generation is getting comes from an old learning video. The literacy rate will become extremely low, if not flat out nonexistant.
• When Ruth dies. By her reaction, it seems that Jane either doesn't know that her mother is dead or understands that she is of no use to her anymore, and leaves her body after jiggling it a few times. The scary part comes when you realize that Jane has nobody to take care of her anymore. Also doubles as a Tear Jerker.
• When Jane gives birth to a stillborn, deformed baby.