It's funny, because Threads, The Day After and Testament are cut from the same cloth -- I think they're all similar reactions to (a) the notion that such an event would be survivable and (b) that survival would not necessarily be preferable. I don't think any of them is necessarily bleaker than the other -- hell, they could all be vignettes from the same universe, just different locales, different scopes -- and none of them conducive to a good night's sleep.

And there are those who've weighed in saying that, at least specifically in The Day After, that the scenario presented was unreasonably optimistic.

If we survive long-term as a species past this "teetering on the brink of self-annihilation" bridge we've dangled our feet over, they'll look back on us like we were psychotic cavemen.