Disclaimer had to be shown before 'one of most depressing and scary films' that's on TV for fourth time ever tonight

A film which has been described as 'one of most depressing and scary films' ever needed to have a disclaimer shown prior to airing on TV.

Now if I were to ask you to name the most 'depressing and scary' film ever, it's likely the response would be a gruesome slasher film or a psychological horror. But what if I told you real life could be a lot more horrifying than blockbuster gore?

In fact one film set in the 1980s Sheffield had a disclaimer playing before which warned viewers that 'scenes which follow may distress you'.

You can watch the trailer below:

Originally airing on BBC2 in 1984, TV film Threads imagines a hypothetical scenario in which a nuclear bomb is dropped near a NATO base in Sheffield after all-out war erupts between the Soviet Union and the USA.

The film then follows what life after a nuclear attack would look like for the average person, including food shortages, healthcare being overwhelmed, leading to an eventual breakdown of law and order.

The film ends on an equally grim note, with the British population dropping to levels not seen since the medieval ages and survivors existing by subsistence farming.

Considering the over-saturation of the apocalypse drama genre in the past couple of decades, Threads may not sound particularly horrifying nowadays.

But to people living during the Cold War, the spectre of a nuclear winter was a very real thing.

The BBC were concerned enough about public hysteria that they ended up airing a disclaimer before playing the film for the first time.

Threads will air for its fourth time tonight (BBC)

Introduced by former BBC Newsnight presenter John Tusa, the journalist explained how the long-term effects of a 'nuclear winter' was an idea which was only finding its way into public consciousness, adding that such event would 'threaten the survival of the survivors' due to 'sub-zero temperatures' and nuclear fallout.

Going on to introduce Threads as a 'fictional' drama, Tusa added: "How would ordinary people survive the impact of the blast and the conditions that scientists say would result from a nuclear exchange?

"Threads is a drama - the characters and the events are fictional, and it deals with something that has never happened."

He continued: "But it draws on a vast amount of scientific information amassed over the last 40 years, on the likely effect and destructive power of nuclear war.

"Some of the scenes which follow may distress you."

Despite the heavy subject matter, Threads has a strong critic reaction, going on to winning several BAFTA awards in 1985.

Threads will air on BBC Four at 10.20pm.