Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Better Late Then Never

Absolutely Fantastic

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

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.

Day of the Triffids was an excellent John Wyndham novel that, in the grand tradition, had been adapted for the screen here with many changes. The result is a story that has been simplified into an alien invasion movie. There is nothing particularly strange about this process though as even today screen adaptions of novels take substantial liberties in the transition. But my advice would nevertheless be to seek out the book as it is one of the great sci-fi novels of its era. The story here has a spectacular meteor shower blinding the population of Earth, except those who did not view it. At the same time, giant carnivorous alien plants called Triffids begin to dominate this world where the blind make easy prey. The story sort of makes me think of the later sub-genre of film, the zombie apocalypse movie. Both share aggressors who are multitudinous, murderous, unrelenting and with one-track minds; while those films also share the survivalist story lines where small groups of people must work out a way to successfully navigate the pandemic that sweeps their world.The Triffids do make for good monsters in what is essentially a creature-feature. The effects are a bit clunky at times but for its era this is still okay and shot in colour which wasn't exactly a given for this type of fayre in the early 60's. Like the original story it is set in Britain, although in the action does relocate to France and Spain latterly. But like a number of British genre films of the time such as the Quatermass films, this one features an American in the lead role as a means to no doubt make the product more marketable in the United States, in this case we have Howard Keel as the most pro-active survivor. It's a film that does work best in its earlier section where we witness the devastation of the meteor incident with hordes of blind milling around London helplessly in various locations, while we also see the early indicators of the dangers the Triffids present, they themselves are introduced in an atmospheric opening attack in a large indoor botanical garden. There is also a separate plot strand with a couple of scientists stranded in a lighthouse on a rock in the sea, needless to say our plant monsters make it out there, causing all manner of terrors. There is some decent suspense generated in this one at times and the production values are good enough overall. It's really quite an entertaining low-brow adaption of an ambitious book; taken for what it is, it's kind of fun.

Steve Sekely directed this adaptation of the John Wyndham novel that stars Howard Keel as sailor Bill Masen, who awakens after an operation to find that he is one of the few people left in the world who did not witness a shower of meteorites landing worldwide, which disastrously left most of the world's population blind. As if that wasn't bad enough, alien seed pods sprouted walking killer plants that are invading everywhere! Bill leaves for France, picking up a young girl and then a woman named Christine(played by Nicole Maurey) along the way, as they try to find a safe haven, and a way to defeat the menace. Mediocre film is nicely filmed in widescreen but lacks well-written characters and features inadequate monster suits. A nice try though. Look out for future "Doctor Who" companion Carole Ann Ford as a victim.

The first screen adaptation of John Wyndham's The Day Of The Triffids is a reliable British sci-fi horror offering from 1962, with token Yank Howard Keel as sailor Bill Masen.The story is well adapted and Keel, as always, is a pleasing screen presence. Production values are, for a UK movie of the period, excellent - the film is widescreen and attractively colourful. Even the effects hold up relatively well: given that giant lurching plants are never going to be easy to make convincing, these aren't bad.The Janette Scott/lighthouse sections are rather obviously shoehorned in after the fact, and the ending is glib and unconvincing. Otherwise, this is an entertaining movie.