I revisited this movie after reading the original H. G. Wells novel on which it is based. I was delighted to see the nods to the source text throughout: the aliens’ tripods, the thunderstorm, scenes of mass panic and destruction, the ‘Heat-Ray’, the amalgamation of the curate and the artilleryman in Tim Robbins’ character, even the aliens’ unfamiliarity with the invention of the wheel!
However, what struck me all the more was the liberties this movie took in adaptation. In…
I rewatched this during the Coronavirus pandemic, a viewing inspired by the way in which our normal day-to-day social interactions have been forced online and over webcams through nationwide lockdowns. It’s better than nothing and an adequate substitute to normal face-to-face interactions, for sure, but still somewhat impersonal and abstracted.
This film, taking place largely on a teenager’s computer screen, seems like a gimmick in theory, but, in practice, is a highly creative and innovative approach to horror. It’s a…
This film is a personal childhood favourite of mine. I was very struck by this film as a child, and rewatching it on this occasion left me feeling quite emotional and oddly melancholic afterwards. None of the film’s problems, scientific or otherwise, mattered to me as a child, and, let’s be honest - why would they?
Nevertheless, the film does have some problems, not even mentioning the likely scientific ones (which I won’t dwell on at all, seeing as a)…
Easily one of the most (if not the most) horrifying and disgusting films I have ever seen. What makes it so starkly affective isn’t just the brutally blunt direction style, or the way in which the mundane trivialities of everyday life pre-bomb are contrasted with the sordid realities of a decimated Britain, or the unflinching commitment to faithful scientific and sociological accuracy (although all of these things contribute significantly to why Threads is as brilliant as it is). It’s how close we came to this being our grim reality, even just by accident. That’s where the real horror lies.
