Have YOU seen this movie?!?!

[IWantToTellYou]

Last night I just saw the scariest movie of my life! It was originally a made for TV movie back in 1983. The movie is called "The Day After". It stared Steve Guttenberg and John Lithgow (the only 2 people I knew in the movie).

Anyway, it was about Russia (of course, back then the U.S.S.R. was the big enemy) and the U.S. going into a war. The U.S. fired ICBM at Russia and then Russia fired back at Kansas City...

When they showed the blast it was the most scary thing I have ever seen. At some points they showed actual footage of Nuclear damage and everything. Some of it was special effects...

The whole movie was based on "The Day After" and how everything was destroyed, and it showed people getting really sick from Radiation poisioning...

Does anyone remember seeing this? It was so disturbing! Even more so than "The Exorcist"!

Do you think that this could happen in the near future? What are your thoughts about a Nuclear war in these uncertain times? Are you guys at all scared out there?

[ Dec 15, 2002, 06:06 PM: Message Edited By: IWantToTellYou ]

[Magill]

OMG, YES! I saw it years ago! I remember it leaving me feeling sick, kind of like "The Holocaust" did, 'cuz I'm half German. I agree that "The Day After" is very intense. I remember it created quite a stir back then. I believe it was based on the Chernobyl accident.

[IWantToTellYou]

Yeah, I didn't like it one bit. I actually cried! There is another movie that is similar but is supposed to be way more intense it is called "Threads" and it is from the UK. It is out of print.

My boyfriend bought the movie "The Day After" off of the internet. I didn't see it all those years ago because I was only 1 at the time...It is more scary now with all this terrorist stuff...You never know what is around the corner

[lilsamharrison]

Odd..I dont like scary movies...there to scary! lol

[beatlewho01-02]

What was the movie called?

[JDanRyan]

I remember that movie well. ABC produced it as a sweeps event in 1983, and it so spooked a lot of advertisers than only Comodore Computers actually bought ad time.

ABC unfortunately suffered for it when Donald Wydmon's group accued them of playing into the hands of our enemies (shades of McCarthy!), and for this ABC molified them by comissioning the absolutely dreadful AMERIKA , about the US under Soviet occupation.

IWantToTellYou, I remember THREADS well too. The Beeb actually sold it here both for PBS stations to run and on tape. Of the two, I prefered THREADS, partly because there was a lot less forced drama being wrung out of it by the writers, but mostly because the Beeb did a better job with the technical details. (An example of which: If when the device goes off over Kansas City and Jason Robards is ducked under the dash board and the heat is strong enough that you can see pain on the hood of the car boil, how come neither the windshield cracks under the heat or Robards gets even a second degree burn, which if the outside of the car is that hot should lead to the other two effects?)

All said, though, not a bad film. Not one of Nicholas Meyer's better directing efforts (compared with THE WRATH OF KAHN or TIME AFTER TIME) but still worth a look.

[angelgodiva]

THE DAY AFTER-- I remember it vaguely. It left me feeling very unsettled, as I recall. Like I said somewhere recently, I am frightened by movies about things that actually could or did happen.

[SF4-EVER]

I remember the commericals for "The Day After" being so scary that I didn't watch the movie -- and still haven't. I was about 13 at the time.

[Rellevart]

Yeah, I watched it when it first came out. Scared the life out of me. Of course, at that time, a lot of people were pretty sure that none of us would ever see the year 2002, that's for sure. I'm glad we have.

[IWantToTellYou]

I didn't like it at all. If my boyfriend ever ordered "Threads" I told him I wouldn't watch it with me. That movie messed me up...

Especially with these uncertain times...

[bearkat77]

Originally Posted By IWantToTellYou:
Do you think that this could happen in the near future? What are your thoughts about a Nuclear war in these uncertain times? Are you guys at all scared out there?<font size="2" face="Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif">Personally, I don't think we have anything to fear of an all-out nuclear war in the near future. When, and if, it ever happens, I do not want to be one of the survivors wandering around and getting radiation poisoning.

I have not seen this movie, but I have seen several similar ones with the same basic plot and countless documentaries about Armageddon.

[JDanRyan]

Originally Posted By bearkat77:
[QUOTE]
I have not seen this movie, but I have seen several similar ones with the same basic plot and countless documentaries about Armageddon.<font size="2" face="Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif">That could be an interesting diversion for the topic...

So, what's everyone's most memorable post-apocalyptic nightmare (or "post-apoc" for short) film? I was tempted to say "favorite" but somehow loving a film about the end of the world seemed to be asking a lot of folks... graemlins/devil1.gif

For me, a few of the ones I would choose would be:

* THREADS: Already discussed above.

* THE WAR GAME: The father of THREADS, a BBC film that also looked at the effects of a thermonuclear exchange, made in 1964. The scenes of survivors trying to celebrate Christmas were heart-breaking.

* ON THE BEACH: Both versions of Nevil Shute's novel were memorable, the one shot by UA in 1959 with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, and the one Showtime did in 2000 with Armand Asante and Rachel Ward.

* TESTAMENT: Made by PBS in mid-1980s. Suburb that didn't get hit directly by the bomb but lost a lot of people in town when it did. Very quiet, storng film with Jane Alexander in the lead. (And for the Beatlemaniacs out there, a good use of "All My Loving" on the soundtrack...)

* SPECIAL BULLETIN: NBC did this movie in 1983 (seems to be a "high period" for these films, here...) about terrorists in Charleston with a device in a "breaking news" format (ala Orson Wells' adaptation of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS). It worked better the second time it aired, when NBC didn't have a crawl continually at the bottom advertising that what we were watching was only fiction.

* TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY: Came out in 1991, the scene where Sarah Connor dreams she watches the bomb destroy Los Angeles gets the award for the most accurate depiction in film of what happens when you set of a nuclear warhead.

* DAMNATION ALLEY: 1979 from Fox, with George Peppard and Jan Michale Vincent looking for civilization. In Albany? (My guess is the screenwriters had never been there...)

* PANIC IN THE YEAR ZERO: Of all the 1950s Roger Coreman films done about the subject, this one was probably the best. Ray Miland and family staying one step ahead of their own decline into barbarism.

* DR. STRANGELOVE: Not really post-apoc, as Kubrick imagines it's "game over" when the birds fly, but worth a mention especially in how it dissects the whole insanity behind the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine.

Any others, please share...

[angelgodiva]

The movie that will be made from the post-apocalyptic novel I am currently writing.

It's going to make a great movie if I do say so myself. I would rhapsodize, but modesty forbids...

[ Dec 17, 2002, 09:14 PM: Message Edited By: angelgodiva ]

[JDanRyan]

Originally Posted By angelgodiva:
The movie that will be made from the post-apocalyptic novel I am currently writing.

It's going to make a great movie if I do say so myself. I would rhapsodize, but modesty forbids...<font size="2" face="Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif">Actually, Angel, I'd love to hear more. I'm something of a big follower of post-apoc, which started in earnest when I did a high school project on FEMA during the early Reagan years.

I'm curious where you are with the research on it, as the folks at FEMA were very generous in hsaring their data with me as far as weapon effects. (Part of the project involved plotting a neighborhood-by-neighborhood examination of the effetcs of a one megaton aerial burst.) There's a good site that gives some basics about the damages in a strike at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/sfeature/mapablast.html and if that's not enough drop me a line and I'll share what I have.

(SFX: Putting Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again" on in the background...)

[Prelly]

I am but a child who was born in 88. so i have never seen it. images/icons/frown.gif

[angelgodiva]

Originally Posted By JDanRyan:
[QUOTE]Originally Posted By angelgodiva:
[qb]The movie that will be made from the post-apocalyptic novel I am currently writing.

It's going to make a great movie if I do say so myself. I would rhapsodize, but modesty forbids...<font size="2" face="Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif">Actually, Angel, I'd love to hear more. I'm something of a big follower of post-apoc, which started in earnest when I did a high school project on FEMA during the early Reagan years.

I'm curious where you are with the research on it, as the folks at FEMA were very generous in hsaring their data with me as far as weapon effects. (Part of the project involved plotting a neighborhood-by-neighborhood examination of the effetcs of a one megaton aerial burst.) There's a good site that gives some basics about the damages in a strike at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/sfeature/mapablast.html and if that's not enough drop me a line and I'll share what I have.
*****************************************
I'll take a look at that; I sent you a chapter to have a look at just now.