The Day After - The 80's Nuke Movie That Terrified The Public

GetPocket ^

[AggregateThreat]

I remember watching this as a kid, everyone was freaking out. Had an almost War of The Worlds radio broadcast feel to it.

Before Nicholas Meyer's made-for-television film The Day After had its official airing on November 20, 1983, then-President Ronald Reagan and his Joint Chiefs of Staff were given screening copies. In his diary, Reagan recorded his reaction to seeing Meyer's graphic depiction of a nuclear holocaust that devastates a small Kansas town, writing:

"It's very effective and left me greatly depressed. So far they [ABC] haven't sold any of the 25 spot ads scheduled and I can see why. Whether it will be of help to the 'anti-nukes' or not, I can't say. My own reaction was one of our having to do all we can to have a deterrent and to see there is never a nuclear war."

[Levy78]

Ha! I remember that movie as a kid... scared the Sh*t out of me...... watched it recently on youtube.

[Vermont Lt]

I remember churches and schools having “discussion” groups about it.

Having people on the front lines and in holes all over the west, I knew better. Reagan did as well.

Bunch of drama queens.

[ConservativeMind]

I remember it, but even though I was young, I didn’t get any more uptight over it than reruns of Twilight Zone.

[djf]

I have The Day After on DVD. It is pretty depressing.
Another one to watch for is Special Bulletin. I have that one also.
And there is Testament starring Jane Alexander and William Defoe.

These are all scary as chit!

[Rummyfan]

Agit prop from one of the major networks, pure anti-Reagan propaganda. Do you really need a TV movie to know that nuclear war would be a bad thing?! Almost forty years later and the propaganda has only gotten worse. Recently we’ve had movies to tell us slavery was bad. Really?! We only fought a four year bloody civil war to get rid of it!

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

I remember that. What about the “The day after tomorrow” that came out 16 years ago, global warming will kill us all.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/

Also remember in 2006 Ass Gore said in ten years we will be past the point of no return. 10 years ago came and went 4 years ago.

[NorthstarMom]

We had to watch it at school. Left me scared and depressed about my future.

[PghBaldy]

I saw “The Day After” when it was broadcast. It was well-one scary propaganda, though I found “Testament” much more emotionally moving. Jane Alexander and her daughter, and the gas station owner and his mentally disabled son. I think it was more effective for me personally. I was a liberal then.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

They should make a movie called “4 years after” about what the country and world would be like after 4 years of Joe Biden.

[Red Badger]

I remember that ‘movie’..........It was done in a video tape style and fake ‘live’ broadcast like it was ‘news’.......

[lee martell]

We, the general American public, were very easy to scare back then. It was still during the Cold War with the Soviets, where theoretically, a Nuke could be dropped AT ANY MOMENT.
So much is different today.

If a country as radically Muslim as Pakistan can hold on to it’s Nukes, then there is hope for peace via Mutual Assured Destruction. The Pakis surprised me. I was certain someone in that kicked hornet’s nest of a government would have attacked India by now.

[karnage]

A well-made film that simply furthered the no-nukes, anti-Reagan hysteria of the period.

We’ve seen ALL these movies before.

Doomies are always wrong.

But some of them get rich off their bullshit.

[gundog]

I remember an impressionable woman watching “ The Day AfterTomorrow,” and turning to her husband and saying “What are we going to do?” These movies really do have an effect on the national psyche.

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

The music in the movie was written by David Raskin. The music that played as the movie ended—no words, just music--was a song called "Kansas". Although Raskin composed most of the music in the movie, he didn't write this final tune from scratch. He adapted it from music in a 1938 movie called "The River". I don’t know whether or not he realized that the music in that movie wasn't original, but had also been adapted from an older song: "How Firm a Foundation". So, while many people were feeling a sense of utter and complete hopelessness as the movie ended, Christian people ended with not just the tune but the words of the song ringing in their minds. The Providence of God? Perhaps. One verse to the song says,

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not harm thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

[dfwgator]

Compared to “Threads”, “The Day After” was a comedy.

[KobraKai]

The Day After is the best of the nuclear holocaust trio, the other two are Threads and Testament.

Threads is a British take on nuclear war. It has one element that is interesting in the last 20 minutes or so, in which it jumps about a hundred years into the future and shows a devolved humanity living a bleak, starved existence.

Testament as I recall, doesn’t have any immediate devastation, as it shows a small town gradually get radiation/fallout sickness and die off. It’s all around a rather cheap production.

If you want to be terrified, I recommend The Atomic Bomb Movie.

[left that other site]

I vaguely remember the special effect of people’s skeletons lighting up in the Flash, and it reminded me of Wile E. Coyote...and I did the UNTHINKABLE.

I LAUGHED.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Add to your list the British entry “Threads.”

I saw Special Bulletin a few years ago. Heard about it when it came out. Biggest interest I had was that it was set just a few miles from me in Charleston, SC.

When all of these came out I was in the USAF in SAC. BTW when home video became popular every B-52 crewman was expected to have their own copy of “Dr. Strangelove.”

[OrangeHoof]

Then there was the early 60s classic “Fail-Safe” which I stumbled into one night in the wee hours on WGN. It has a happy ending - New York City gets nuked.

But the amazing thing to me was watching top comic actors like Walter Matthau, Dom DeLouise and Larry Hagman - before they were famous - playing serious supporting roles. They were not playing for laughs.

If you’ve never heard of Fail-Safe, it is probably because it came out at roughly the same time as “Dr. Strangelove” which took much of the same premise only made it a true comedy with Peter Sellers, Slim Pickens and George C. Scott. The comedy drew far larger crowds and forced the well-made “Fail-Safe” into rapid obscurity.