Truly Dreadful Film

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Absolutely Brilliant!

There's a pretty damn interesting chestnut from from 80's-era nuclear nightmare films available on Youtube — 1983's "Special Bulletin." I was surprised I hadn't heard of it. I think most 80's kids remember ABC's "The Day After." That infamous television movie was a cultural touchstone that scared a generation of kids. "Special Bulletin" was produced by NBC the same year, actually preceding "The Day After" by nine months. Instead of a world-ending war with Russia, the feature-length special imagined a single incident of nuclear terrorism in Charleston, South Carolina. (I myself had no idea that Charleston was the strategic military nexus that the movie explains it to be.)"Special Bulletin" was filmed as a "War of the Worlds"-type narrative, consisting exclusively of faux news coverage, and it's pretty damned good. (It won a handful of Emmys.) It's just as frightening today — or maybe more so, given the increased threat of precisely this kind of terrorism from stateless groups.The acting is mostly good, the directing successfully captures the feel of live news coverage, and the absence of a musical score further lends the movie a sense of realism. The story has a few surprises for us, too — the plot setup is creative and interesting, and much more thought went in the the teleplay than I would have expected. The film asks some difficult questions about the role of the media in affecting the outcome of high-profile crimes like the one depicted. (Would such questions be more or less relevant in the age of camera-phones, uploaded ISIS executions and Facebook Live? I'm not sure.)I was also quite impressed with some of "Special Bulletin's" thriller elements. (I'd say more, but I will avoid spoilers.)One thing that detracts from the format's realism is the fact that some of this movie's actors are easily recognizable from other roles in the 80's (although it's fun spotting them as an 80's movie fan).Most viewers my age, for example, will recognize Ed Flanders and Lane Smith. The utterly sexy female reporter who arrives on location at Charleston Harbor is Roxanne Hart, who later played Brenda in "Highlander" (1986). (She's still quite beautiful, guys, and she's still making movies.) Most jarring of all, however, is a prominent role played by David Clennon, who any fan of horror- science fiction will recognize as Palmer from John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece, "The Thing." This is still fun, though — he has that same disarrayed hair. Was it his trademark back in the day?

I caught this circa 1987 on TV late one night . It's a docu-drama / spoof American news featuring a bunch of terrorists making demands on a tug boat and if they're not met they'll be detonating an atomic bomb they're conveniently carrying about . Getting killed by a giant mushroom cloud wasn't a common event in the 1980s but , the fear of dying in a nuclear explosion was a very real one however . It should also be remembered that whilst terrorism was happening across the world like Northern Ireland for example terrorist attacks on American soil was totally unknown . How times change And that's the problem with SPECIAL BULLETIN - both the world and media have changed meaning this speculative drama appears very dated . Even in the late 1980s here in Britain you could only catch the news at certain times of the day - uninterrupted 24 hour news as it happens would be unknown over here . It's different now of course because we can see wars from the front line in real time and see thousands of people die as buildings collapse in New York It's impossible not to be reminded of the real life events of 9/11 and this is what hurts SPECIAL BULLETIN - everything is a bit too forced and overly dramatic as hardened TV news reporters , gasp , sigh and emote in a not totally convincing manner as if they're actors who have read the ending of the script which they no doubt have . Compare this with drama with the real life reactions seen by news anchors on 9/11 who have a slighted shocked mannerism which gives the impression of bland detachment . In some ways real life doesn't match the physical drama of fiction Like so many of the people here I do remember this drama from its broadcast in the 1980s . Having an atomic bomb explode in North Carolina killing two thousand people seemed a little far fetched . The events of 9/11 showed that nothing is beyond terrorists . One thing that did come out after 9/11 is that the myth of terrorists getting their hands on some plutonium and making a home made nuclear device is exactly that - a myth , you'd need a state owned technological industry to make such a device so something like SPECIAL BULLETIN is an interesting oddity from a time of nuclear fears and paranoia

An interesting insight into nuclear paranoia in the early 1980s, focused not on the Soviet cold war threat but on the possibility of home-grown American nuclear terrorism. This TV movie's fictional 'breaking news story' (War of the Worlds) format has been copied time and again on TV in the years since. The film hasn't aged well but viewers should remember that this production predated The Day After, Threads, and the special effects technology we take for granted today. It's also important to note that even when this was first aired, it was very bad TV. Kathryn Walker's performance as the overly emotional female news anchor was truly embarrassing, even in its day, and even the more skilled actors in the cast simply couldn't overcome the poor script and direction. As bad as TV was in the early 80s, it was rarely *this* bad. Which makes this movie all the more interesting to watch at three in the morning with your drunk on. It's an antidote for nostalgia and a counter-example not only to the many other movies that did a better job with this subject, but most the television content we take for granted today.

If you missed this movie when it was first on in the early 1980s, then you should watch it now. It's probably out on DVD. The plot could be taken from today's headlines. However, it's not. The thought of terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear bomb seemed distant and unrealistic back in 1983. Today, it seems all too real. Three years ago, our troops in Afghanistan captured Al Qaeda documents that said it was "their religious duty" to obtain nuclear weapons. The movie was about a reporter and a cameraman who were taken hostage by "peace activists" on a tugboat in Charleston Harbor. The "peace activists" are actually terrorists. They're demanding that every nuclear detonators in the Charleston area be delivered to them to destroyed or else they'll explode a nuclear bomb of their own. Where did they get it? We don't know. We have to assume that it was stolen. What happens in the last ten minutes? You'll have to torture me to get that information out of me and even then I wouldn't tell you. Watch and find out yourselves.