There is a science fiction movie without any special effects! With a bonus, a very young Kevin Costner

Science fiction is not necessarily synonymous with a riot of special effects. This is evidenced by this very good film that deserves to be rediscovered: The Last Testament, released in 1983 in the United States.

The Weatherly family lives quietly in a small suburban town in California. In the afternoon, television stops broadcasting at the request of the White House to announce that the West Coast of the United States has lost contact with the East Coast. Suddenly there is a flash of light: a nuclear attack has occurred.

Rather than dealing with the political level of this attack or its potentially spectacular aspect, The Last Testament chooses to focus on the local consequences of this attack on the residents of the small town of Weatherly.

why do you see

Individuality is broken and collective feeling is at the center of the debate, and radiation has the effect of increasing tension in society. As the mother, Jane Alexander (seen in Martin Ritt’s Insurgent) gives an excellent performance as a mother trying to keep her spirits up in front of her three children.

Directed by Lynn Littman, this feature film was intended as a made-for-TV movie, but its producers were so impressed with the results that they eventually decided to release it theatrically. As a bonus, and most importantly, we can see Kevin Costner and Rebecca de Mornay in small roles.

After Yellowstone, head to the horizon: Kevin Costner’s western epic is coming to France, and we’ve got a date!

Live output

When it came out, the TV movie was set in a very tense context between the United States and the Soviet Union, and then in the middle of the Cold War. In September 1983, the Soviet missile warning computer system detected between one and four nuclear attacks against the Soviet Union before realizing – before launching a response – that it was a false alarm.

Other feature films from this period dealt with the fear of nuclear war, including Nicholas Meyer’s The Day After Tomorrow or Mick Jackson’s Threads, a BBC telefilm.