jamesgandrew After a worldwide meteor shower, giant plants attack and the majority of the population becomes blind. It's up to the survivors to ward off giant triffids in their fight of survival.Adapted from John Wyndham's book of the same name, this is a decent low budget post-apocalyptic movie that is rather enjoyable. The film is a British production directed by Steve Sekely. After filming the filmmakers realised that they only shot 57 minutes of usable footage. So, in order to extend the run time, they decided to add in an extra subplot involving a couple living at a lighthouse and this was directed by Freddie Francis. Francis ended up being an Oscar winning cinematographer known for Sons and Lovers, The Elephant Man, Glory and Cape Fear.The film stars Howard Keel who's best known for musicals and television, and he is decent in the lead role. The other actors also do well for what they are given and overall the acting is good for what is essentially a b-movie. The Day of the Triffids has gathered a cult following over the years and has inspired many films. It acts similarly to a zombie movie in that people are surrounded by what they perceive as an unstoppable threat and they eventually find a weakness. This was a few years ahead of the pioneering zombie films so the post-apocalyptic survival story was interesting at the time. While not necessarily smart, it's a fun creature feature that's worth a watch.

kris-gray My five word title just about sums it up. We have an American (of course can' sell it to the Yanks unless one of the main stars is one) naval man, he wasn't in the book. He was a botanist who worked with the Triffids who blinded him, he reason he was in hospital and the reason he missed the meteor shower. The main gripe I have is the daft ending, changed from the book, where at some lighthouse, also not in the book, they suddenly discover all they needed to kill the plants was salt water. Why change the end at all? in the book humans learn to live with the Triffids.If you want to see a pretty faithful version watch the BBC series from the 80's which sticks pretty close.Also, ignore the 2009 version.

Cristi_Ciopron Sekely had a knack for the eeriness, and his work here is chilling, the plot was too good to spoof it in the '40s fashion; the movie has a neat look. The main objection against the idea, namely that plants aren't scary, doesn't hold, since the Triffids are shown as a hybrid form of life, and the scientist utters both things (protesting against being killed by a plant, and stating that the Triffids aren't only plants); but the illness is scarier than the moving plants.If the plants don't look too threatening as shape (but neither did the zombies, nor other weird menaces in the cinema which hosted Sekely's 1st movies from the freer world), their assaults are, also as mirrored by the sightless people in the railway station, who cling to their prey and follow the sound, guide themselves by the sound.But his movie is also engrossing, and conveys a sense of drama, and of peril, the scenes in the French house are awesome, glowingly surreal; a very intriguing actress as the French host (then, Keel's travel companion). The eeriness of the scenes, in the hospital, on streets, in the railway station, in the French mansion, is also exquisitely conveyed; the novelist outdid Wells, delivering not one, but two plagues. The novel's storyline had to be sampled for the screen.Because of H. Keel's fitness for a physical role, Sekely's movie became also an ancestor of the disaster movies. Keel proved being an awesome choice for the leading role; he was the antipode of Marvin, the direct opposite of him, and a kind of a _proto-Chevy Chase, with a humorous gleam. Keel does a very good role, precisely as we know him: athletic and sage.Very good movie; if it's Sekeley's most famous, it deserves. The plants' attack is well foreboded in the railway station.6 ½ yrs ago I have read a novel by the author, but not this one. Therefore, I didn't know the plot, save for the threatening plants of its title; to me, the movie wasn't an adaptation, and I didn't check it as such. I realized how much the story is indebted to Wells: Triffids instead of Tripods, the weapon that will bring death to the invaders and end their dominion; and the _sightlessness itself gives the name of a book by Wells.

david-sarkies Maybe it is just that I am getting a little spoilt with the technology that goes into the production of movies these days, or maybe it is just that this film is based on a book and despite the special effects being worse than bad, the fact that it is based on a book and the book upon which it has been based is much better than the film itself probably adds to the fact that I did not particularly like this film all that much.Okay, to be blunt, it was really the special effects that were really bad with this film, but the thing is that back in 1962 they did not have computer imaging to enhance films, and it was still years away from the breakthroughs in special effects that give rise to films like 2001 A Space Odyssey and Star Wars so one can't really give this film flack over the poor special effects because what they had to work with at the time was limited indeed.As for the film itself, it is based on the John Wyndham book of the same name and it is about how a meteor shower one night results in everybody in the world going blind, with the exception of those who did not look onto it, and then from the chaos arises these plants known as Triffids, that go around eating what remains of humanity. The thing about the film though is that I believe that in the book we simply follow one person around, however in the film we are jumping back and forth between two groups, one guy and a woman in alight house (who some how managed to escape being blinded) and the sailor who had just had eye surgery, so had his eyes covered up during the meteor shower.However I guess an in-depth analysis of the film is meaningless because this film basically annoyed me. If it was supposed to be a horror film, then it failed badly, particularly since the triffids themselves looked so fake, and moved about as if they were on motorised wheels. On the other hand, it is never going to meet the standard of the book anyway.