https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgT4Y30DkaA (trailer only)
It's about the lives of average people before, during and after a fictional nuclear attack in the UK.
That movie would have been terrifying with just firebombing alone, something that has/had happen all over the world. Nukes somehow surpass the hell on Earth that is conventional total war.
It's also impressive what they made on such a small budget, with something like ~$500k.
But the rest of the film is so apolitical, and so hauntingly well done, that even the "bad guys" in it liked it.
It's really a testament to the film's quality.
I think a point that they were trying to drive home is that there are no "good guys" or winners in a nuclear war, especially when it comes to those who perpetrate it on any side.
No you shouldn't - atleast not without thinking about it first. I still remember its dark, unremitting bleakness 38 years later - it really makes you think about whether its better for your family to die in the initial blast rather than 'survive'.
When I was in school, the teachers all put out an advisory about "The Day After (1983)". It was a big deal; many families were planning to watch it, and it wasn't on cable, it was on broadcast OTA TV, so it was highly accessible, even to children.
The school administration decided they needed to get in front of the controversy and put out a Christian message about hope and trust in God, when it seemed like the world was panicking over the Cold War and mainstream media was egging us on. Ever since then, I have appreciated their candor and willingness to tell us the truth about this world and the next.
We had fire drills at school; we knew about "duck and cover" but we didn't practice any air-raid drills that I can recall. However, when my mother took me shopping at the JC Penney across town, there was prominent signage for their old-fashioned Fallout Shelter in the basement. I was really intrigued by the bold yellow lettering and symbology, and I sometimes wonder what it was like down there, because we've never seen the inside of any bomb shelter whatsoever.
My dad worked around hazardous materials on a regular basis, as a safety professional, and he was on the science end of things, and spent time in the office as much as the lab. He often brought home tools like a Geiger counter, film badges, a radio pager, and I think there were other chemical sensors ("sniffers"?) Learning at his feet, I picked up a lot of geology, so I could recognize isotopes and chemical symbols and count in rems, etc.
Earthquakes were the primary hazard for us, and I suppose that any nuclear explosion would've had earthquake-like effects, among other things, to put it blandly.