A film which depicts a nuclear strike on Britain and shows the horrifying aftermath is 'more terrifying' 40 years on, a columnist has said.
'Threads' is a grim BBC drama telling the story of a nuclear strike on Britain through the eyes of two families.
It traces the events leading up to the war and the decade of devastation that follows.
Irish Independent Columnist Ian O'Doherty told The Hard Shoulder it is a hard picture to beat.
"For anybody who hasn't seen it I do recommend [to] hunt it down online or rent it - it is the most horrifying film I have ever seen," he said.
"It went out in 1984 first - it basically starts off as a kitchen sink BBC drama.
"A middle-class girl gets pregnant with a working-class boy, they have to meet and then the world ends."
Mr O'Doherty said there are themes which still resonate today.
"There's scary parallels with today - there's problems in the Middle East, Iran is the centre of certain issues," he said.
"America and the Soviets - as they were then - are rattling their sabers, things are going on in the background.
"Where it all goes extremely scary is there's a bunch of people in Sheffield on the high street and they look up and they just see the mushroom cloud - and that's it.
"Chaos reigns, the world as we knew it has ended forever."
"Threads is a hugely important film and given the way everything is going at the moment it just seems to have a really weird relevance or resonance," he said.
"40 years ago it went out and it's more terrifying now than it was at the time".
Mr O'Doherty said the bleak film is very much based on science.
"There is no redemption, there's no room for optimism," he said.
"Mick Jackson [is] the director and he's actually a scientist.
"He'd spent two years going to scientific symposiums and stuff about what would happen in the wake of nuclear war.
"There were no winners, let's put it that way".
'Contingency plans'
Mr O'Doherty said unlike similar films, Threads follows through in the years afterwards.
"As the survivors go on the kids don't speak English because all the adults are dead," he said.
"The few adults that have survived are catatonic or they're so traumatised that nobody's teaching the kids.
"In the wake of the bombs falling the local government has been empowered and these are all real [plans] that were there.
"These are all the contingency plans that government had in.
"They even deputise the few traffic wardens who are still alive and they give them a gun to shoot looters".
Mr O'Doherty said there are several impressive visual motifs including a melting 'ET' doll which "was the big move at the time".
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