It's a cartoon about a very nice retired couple who could be your grandparents, pootling along with life while the doomsday clock reaches midnight, trusting in the advice of the government to survive World War III by stockpiling peanut butter and hiding in the cellar until civic order is restored. Then they survive the bomb and are heartbreakingly oblivious to their slow grim fate. As if all that isn't bad enough, it's drawn in the same style as the charming and happy British Christmas institution The Snowman. Imagine a much-loved animation that the whole family can gather round at the holidays, like How The Grinch Stole Christmas or The Muppet Christmas Carol. Now imagine those characters, or ones who conceivably live in the same world, slowing dying of radiation poisoning with no-one coming to help because there's no-one else left alive.
- The animation used to depict the bombing- showing people being vaporised by the heat and shockwave of the blast, sheep tossed across the countryside like balls of cotton wool, a train blown off the tracks, crashing over the side of a bridge and into the river it's crossing and houses blown apart- all to an utterly chilling and violent death metal score underlying it.
- When the Bloggses think they can smell roast pork, it's heavily implied to actually be the seared flesh of the dead, cooked by the heat of the blast.
- As they're speaking, the movie pans to the utter devastation that's being wrought: houses crumbling, trees withered, animals dying, outlines of what look to be dead bodies. Unlike the comics where it's centered on the Bloggses in their garden, this movie spells it out that everyone and everything has been annihilated.
- Hilda hears a dog howling in the distance, and thinks that it just wants to be fed. In reality, it's probably howling in pain as it dies of radiation sickness and/or injuries sustained in the blast.
- Once the bombs have dropped, the Bloggses' naivete creates an incredible sense of horror simply by being juxtaposed against the post-nuclear wasteland.
- In the final and most crushing example, their cuteness and innocence as Hilda says she feels like a bunch of potatoes as she moves around in her paper bag is absolutely heart breaking.
- The final shot of the film shows the ash and smoke-filled sky clearing of fallout to reveal the sunlight shining through behind it. Even though this ending offers a ray of hope amidst the tragedy, it does little to numb the fact that many thousands, possibly even millions of people are dead, not to mention the untold devastation across the United Kingdom’s cities and countryside.
- In the final and most crushing example, their cuteness and innocence as Hilda says she feels like a bunch of potatoes as she moves around in her paper bag is absolutely heart breaking.
- The end of the credits where it pans over the dedication to the children born to the crew during the development of the film (and their futures), there is a snippet of Morse Code being played. This code stands for M.A.D.- or, Mutual Assured Destruction, which means there's even MORE bombs to come. The war isn’t over - it’s only just begun.
- While the movie does depict the effects of radiation poisoning quite well (showing that the Blogsses become very thin, develop sores on their body and Hilda losing her hair), the comic is far more chilling. The two of them basically lose all the colour in their skin, become visibly ill almost right from the start and Jim even starts bleeding from his mouth while singing a song trying to cheer Hilda up. As if that weren't bad enough, Hilda starts to have bloody diarrhea.
- There's something disturbing about the scene in which Jim finally shows that he is afraid for his and Hilda's survival when he realises that they have no water left.Jim: [weakly] Put the kettle on, will you, ducks?
Hilda: There's no water left, dear...
Jim: Oh yes, of course. Well...we'll just have to have milk then.
Hilda: That pint's gone bad, dear. The fridge has been off.
Jim: Oh...heck. B-black coffee, then...
Hilda: There's still no water, James.
Jim stands up and stumbles over to Hilda
Jim: Well...what are we going to drink?! Eh?! EH?! (grabs and shakes Hilda) What ARE WE GOING TO DRINK, FOR GOD'S SAKE!?
