The Day of the Triffids
Published September 4, 2010
Film info
- Title The Day of the Triffids
- Director Steve Sekely
- Year 1963
- Run time 1hr 34m
- Genres Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller
- Tagline Beware the Triffids... they grow, know, walk, talk, stalk, and kill!
Based on the classic novel by John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids is a first-class excursion into a science fiction nightmare. When a spectacular meteor shower pummels the Earth, the billions who witness the event are left with an unexplained shock... they've all been rendered blind! Panic spreads when it's discovered that the meteorites have also left alien spores behind which quickly grow into Triffids - gigantic, rampaging plants intent on wiping out the helpless human race!
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 0:58 | That’s the scary plant, huh? |
| 2:33 | Ooh, based on a book. Noted for future reading (maybe). |
| 3:40 | That meteorite shower is making a very strange noise. |
| 6:13 | Is that Howard Keel? Hard to tell without his eyes, but… you can tell by his lovely voice. |
| 8:48 | He’s bored of dissecting stingrays. I wouldn’t have thought marine biologists got bored with their jobs too. |
| 12:51 | Ugh, he’s eating a boiled egg by itself. |
| 13:33 | He’s turned green! It’s like the Hulk. |
| 14:46 | I like the classic sci-fi thing of waking up in a hospital and there being no one else around. Pretty scary. |
| 15:56 | One woman screams and he takes off the bandages. It didn’t take much. |
| 17:28 | I’m expecting him to come across a dead body soon, like in The Birds. |
| 20:11 | Ooh, being on a deserted lighthouse island is a great way to avoid the carnage. |
| 22:29 | “Blind people? Killer plants? Am I drunk?” |
| 23:27 | I must say, I find that plant a bit too pink to be scary. |
| 23:58 | How weird to be one of the only people in the world who can see. |
| 24:52 | How would any trains be running? No one can see to drive them. |
| 31:19 | The way that plant moves is pretty funny, sort of creeping. Also, they can totally outrun it so it’s not all that dangerous. |
| 36:27 | I thought this was about scary flowers, but it’s more about scary blindness so far. |
| 42:47 | Ooh, how did they get the Arc de Triomphe in such a state of disarray? |
| 45:03 | Who knew that hospitals would be the place to be. |
| 49:30 | He seems like a handy man to have in an emergency. |
| 55:04 | If it came to life, why did it go for escape and not kill them first? |
| 1:02:07 | He’s gone green too. It’s like the opposite of Avatar. |
| 1:09:56 | What do the plants actually want? Are they just hungry? |
| 1:15:19 | Submarines also as useful as hospitals. |
| 1:18:20 | Blimey, that’s a lot of plants to have just arrived with no one noticing. The guy just came in from outside as well. |
| 1:18:45 | I thought plants and trees shorted out electric fences. |
| 1:23:14 | The kid solved it. Pied Piper style. Ice cream van to the rescue. |
| 1:31:01 | The plants couldn’t just die, they had to melt into sludge. Gross. |
Thoughts
A good old fashioned movie, available via the iPlayer. I’ve heard of this in passing, but never really known the story - except for it being about giant plants.
It’s an interesting concept, but I’m not 100% sure the story held up throughout. I would be more intrigued to find out how the world continued with everyone blind - how did they survive, how did they go about bringing up the non-blind youngsters? How did the people get off the lighthouse island to send word about the sea water? Anyway, good but not great.
Rating: 3 / 5