TESTAMENT (1983) - ****

Apocalypse Gimmick: Domestic Drama
Claim to Fame: (1)Theatrically released in same year as THE DAY AFTER (2) Even more soul-crushingly depressing than THE DAY AFTER! (3) Oscar nominated for Best Actress (Jane Alexander)

The Plot: The story is told through the eyes of a woman who is struggling to take care of her family. The entire movie takes place in a small suburban town outside San Francisco. After the nuclear attack, contact with the outside world is pretty much cut off.

The Review: While THE DAY AFTER was the TV movie event of 1983, TESTAMENT quietly garnered critical applause in its very brief theatrical release, eventually getting its lead(Alexander) an acting Oscar nomination.

Meyer's THE DAY AFTER is very good, but its more like "Why Radiation Poisoning Sucks for Humanity," using several characters, differing storylines, to explain why nuclear war isn't a good idea.

Instead, TESTAMENT tells this story by focusing on one family isolated in a cut-off suburb in California. Its "Why Radiation Poisoning Sucks for the Family" and its very very very very fucking depressing.

People whine to me about how CHINATOWN and CHILDREN OF MEN are depressing. No, those movies are diet depressing in small levels. TESTAMENT is such a brutal depressing punch to the stomach, in the tradition of Oliver Stone's SALVADOR, the FDA probably gave such movies a Miscarriage Warning to expecting mothers.

But, its this power that reminds you that the Baby Boomers were very lucky to have never suffer through a nuclear third World War...or at least to have survived the first blasts.