[CaptainCrunch]

For those of us that grew up in the 70's and 80's at the height of the Cold War between the East and West we lived under a different umbrella of end of way scenarios. We didn't talk about Climate Change or holes in the Ozone layer. We dealt with the nuclear end game. With terms like MAD, and Nuclear Winter, concepts like the doomsday clock making regular appearances in the news, and events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, and proxy wars between the East and West. This topic seemed to fascinate film makers who speculated what the end of the world by Nuclear fire would look like. Most of the time these movies were based around strict political commentary. How did these fools and idiots get a hold of the nuclear button, and how would the world end.


With that I wanted to look at a few of the more horrifying or thought provoking end of the world movies that don't focus around the after effects as much as those moments when the nuclear genie was released from the bottle.


1) The Day After (1982) - probably one of the more horrifying movies that I've ever seen. This was a made for TV movie watched by over a 100 million people and if I remember right no commercial braks in the second half.


The movie starts with the usual tensions between the East and West, that are heard as various families and characters watch TV or hear them on the radio while they're living their normal lives. The tensions escalate to a full out shooting war with the use of tactical nuclear weapons, which eventually leads to a full nuclear exchange between the Super Power. The actual nuclear attack is effectively portrayed as you see people disintegrating and cities destroyed. A lot of this movie focuses around the aftermath of the war. We see survivors huddling in basements around radios listening to a very Ronald Reganesque voice assuring them that they still have a government. We see the devastation of radiation sickness and the breakdown of society. The ending is especially frightening as one of the character uses a short wave radio to try to talk to survivors and finds none.



In terms of a real world scenario basis here this was a close as we would get to understanding what nuclear war was all about. The film was savaged by some as a anti American piece of propaganda while praised by others for its bleakness and nobody wins ending. Having rewatched this a couple of years back its still a frightening watch.





2) Dr Strangelove or how I stopped worrying about the Bomb (1964) - a wicked comedy and wicked piece of social satire that unleashed the awesome powers of Peter Sellers. The premise of the war itself was as zany as it comes as General Jack D Ripper in command of the 843rd bomber wing launches an attack on the Soviet Union because he believes the Soviets have poisoned the American Water supply with floride to pollute the precious bodily fluids of America. To prevent the recall of American Bombers Ripper givves then a 3 digit code that only Ripper knows which means the Bombers can't be recalled.



A great deal of this movie takes place in the war room and we see a debate between Hawks and Doves with General Buck Tugideson played by George C Scott arguing that they need to let this war play out to eliminate the Soviet threat. Meanwhile the Soviets inform the American's of an automated doomsday device that will launch an end of the cobalt nuclear explosions if it detects a nuclear attack on Russia.


This leads to a race against time as the Russians and Americans try to shoot down the American bombers before they can reach their targets. This ultimate fails as one American bomber piloted by Slim Pickens drops its bomb.



The Americans plan to evacuate Americans to a deep bomb shelter but with tha female to male ratio of 10 to 1 to start a breeding program. But Turgidson worries about a mineshaft gap as surely the Russians will do the same thing. The movie ends with Dr Strangelove standing out of his chair, proclaiming "Mein Fuhrer I can walk, the Doomsday device activates and we see a series of nuclear explosions to the song "We'll meet again".


This was quite a fun movie to watch and a lot of it was played for laughs in the war room. The scene of Slim Pickens riding to his death on a nuclear bomb wile screaming yahoo was both terrifying and hilarious.



Like The Day After this movie was built around the concept of the biggest idiots hold the fate of the world in their hands. This is still a must see movie when it comes on TV.





3) Fail-safe (1964) - This was almost the same file as Doctor Strangelove but without the Comedy.



The basic premise is that a mistake has caused American Bombers to attack Russia. The American's try to desparatetly stop the bombers themselves but fail. As the bombers approach Moscow the Soviet Premiere warns of a mass retaliation if the American's succeed. To avert war the American President sends a US nuclear armed bomber to attack and destroy New York as a sign to the Premiere that the attack is in error and to prevent a Soviet counter strike. efforts to recall the Bombers or stop them fail and the link between the Premiere and the President are cut off and the President orders the destruction of New York. The movie ends with people in New York going about the daily lives with no idea what is to come.



This was a good counter movie to Strangelove. The premise is based around the possibility that a mistake could end the world. At times the movie was dry and the effects were few and far between but the interactions between Henry Fonda and the Soviet leadership was really well done and the tension of the movie ramps up to a horrifying ending.





4) On the Beach (1959) - One of the most depressing movies that I've ever seen. It takes place in the months following a massive Nuclear War between the super powers and is based in Autralia. Though the war is over and has been for months a massive cloud of Nuclear fall out is headed to Australia and everyone is going to die. Everyone tries to go through their normal lives as the end approaches. We get stories of multiple different characters. The Crew of a US Submarine that had sheltered in Australia but decides to head back to the States to either find survivors or die at home. But in the dd returns to Australia to see the end of the world. We have families carry on their normal lives. One of the saddest scenes in the movie is a group of fishermen singing Waltzing Matilda. We have characters committing suicide to avoid radiation sickness, and the crew of the sub decides in the end that they'd rather die at home.



The last scene in the movie shows the last pockets of humanity dead and we see the empty streets of Melbourne and a forgone banner that states "There's still time - Brother".


This was an amazing movie for its time and incredibly depressing. It shows how people respond as death approaches and an especially bad death. I remember bawling during the fishman singing scene as I knew they were all doomed to a horrible fate.








5) War Games (1983) - I don't think that I need to go into the plot of this excellent movie. But its not as much a critism of man's abiltiy to destroy itself as it is that man is always trying to find a way to make it easier to kill each other while removing themselves from the responsibility of that decision. Thus creating an AI to do the thinking for them. This is a movie that does an amazing job of escalating tension and the race between the code and the tic-tac-toe game was brilliant, though the machine reaching the conclusion that nuclear war was not a game to be played was incredibly heavy handed.





Honorable mentions


Ladybug Ladybug (1963) set during the Cuban Missile Crisis and focuses on a group of students at an isolated school. This movie has a powerful ending as a child looks up at the sky as the teachers are evacuating the students and screams "Stop" over and over again as Bombers fly over head.



When the Wind Blows (1986) - a really depressing animated film about a elderly couple in Britain who survive a nuclear strike in their home made bomb shelter. However they realize that the government guidelines on preparation and suvival are wrong and they slowly get sick and die.