You have to pay attention

sneezewhiz

The movie is designed as a vignette, to show the effects of a 1980s nuclear war on a college town in Kansas, an area not on a primary-targets list.

Virtually all communication is cut off to the outside world, and except for a radio broadcast message from the US President, we have no idea how the rest of the world is faring, and since all relief efforts appear to be local, centered around the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence KS, we must assume the devastation is worldwide.

The timespan of the movie runs from a day or so before the disaster through several weeks in the various places where people take shelter, to a few weeks after the survivors emerge. The viewer sees things gradually getting worse.

We see humanity survive, but it doesn't look too good for humankind.

"Threads" was produced in the UK about the same time, the early 1980's being a time of high fear after Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech. The British movie was much more factual and documentary-like in it's production, and more graphic, but it ended on a more hopeful note. At the end of "Threads", some 15 years after the holocaust, there are people and a society of sorts.

"The Day After" does not end as hopefully.

score /10

sneezewhiz 29 November 2002

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0200472/