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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	1984
Country of origin:	asasa
Director:	Mick Jackson
Genre:	Nuclear war horror
Starring:	Karen Meagher, Reece Dinsdale, David Brierly, Rita May
Rating:	5/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/
Tagline:	The closest you'll ever want to come to nuclear war.
Favourite line:	" Jesus Christ! They've done it... They've done it!"

Docu-drama about the effects of a nuclear strike in the north of England.

The plot:
In the Middle East, tempers are flaring and patience wearing thin between the USSR and the USA. Russia, initiating an attack on Iran, invokes the fury of the West, so the US and the UK intervene. Shortly after, an American bomber is shot down by Russia, using a nuclear warhead, so America responds by detonating a small nuclear device on the ground.
With tensions around the world rising, Sheffield sees an emergency team put in place for, as the third largest city in the UK, and home to the steel industry, it is considered a prime target, should the worst happen.
Then, the dreadful day comes, and the emergency sirens sound, as an incoming attack appears imminent but, instead of striking Sheffield, the nuclear warhead detonates over the North Sea, inducing an EMP which cripples all communications systems, shortly after which another bomb, this one detonating just 20 miles away from the city and, unbeknownst to the city’s residents, multiple other sites across the UK and Western Europe.
Nuclear war is upon us, and the horror has only just begun…....

Produced by the BBC, this is slow, brooding, sobering viewing that has lost none of its power to shock and horrify.
Played dead straight, as if it were a factual account of an event that transpired many years ago – the drama is frequently interrupted with on screen statistics about death toll, nuclear yield, the onset of which disease at what stage of the apocalypse, and so on – this has the capacity to chill you to the bone as, though the main players may be slightly different, the potential for catastrophe still exists in the world.
Filtered through a lens that seems to have been designed to only accept green, brown and grey light through, the world we see, even before the detonation, is damp and dreary and dismal, serving to act as a foreshadowing of events yet to come, and very effective it is, too.
With a cast of actors that will be vaguely familiar faces whilst at the same time not household names, the realism is never broken, the fourth wall never shattered. There’s no John Thaw, here, or David Jason, bursting the reality bubble, instead we see Reece ‘Home to Roost’ Dinsdale quite literally being eaten alive by radiation sickness.
Yummy.
A masterful study in low budget, character driven, abject horror, this is absolutely flawless stuff, and something that anyone who ‘thinks about things’ should most certainly stuff into their world-weary orbs, at the earliest possible convenience.
Who knows, it may just make you appreciate the life you’ve actually got.
Eh?