Threads cast and crew suffered ‘trauma’ after film

The creators of a documentary about the making of nuclear apocalypse film Threads say many of the cast and crew had “suffered with the trauma of being involved”.

By Chloe Aslett, BBC News | August 29, 2025 bbc.com

British DVD cover

Threads, which tracks the aftermath of a nuclear attack on Sheffield, was first screened on the BBC on 23 September 1984 and fast became a cult classic.

Now filmmakers Craig Ian Mann and Rob Nevitt have spoken to more than 50 people involved in the making of the film for their documentary Survivors: The Spectre of Threads.

Mr Mann said: “[Threads] is a film that more than any I can think of everybody who worked on it it has impacted their lives in some way or another. Sometimes very positively and sometimes somewhat negatively.”

“There are people who have suffered the trauma of having been in and seen Threads,” he told BBC Radio Sheffield.

“There’s one participant in the documentary who has become a Doomsday prepper.

“He lives in America and has a bunker and canned food and weapons and he is prepared for the end of the world at any moment and that’s because he was in and saw Threads.”

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