The Day of the Triffids (1963)

Sadly Over-hyped

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

"Plants! Green things that live in the soil. Some are carnivorous. That means they eat meat - the flesh of dead creatures. Meat, I tell you. Meat! Plants that eat meat! We don't know how. We don't know why. Elsewhere, Howard Keel is wearing a blindfold. Let's zoom in on it now. A blindfold, I tell you. A blindfold!..."I may be paraphrasing the film's narration a little - but not much. Honestly, it's that bad! This was a film very much of its time, and it has dated horrendously. In another review, of either Clash of the Titans or Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, I can't remember which, I waxed lyrical about the glories of the "good old days" of moviemaking before the advent of CGI. I expressed scorn and contempt for modern audiences who are unable to appreciate and enjoy old movies, particularly those featuring the best that special effects had to offer in a pre-computerised age - because those are what I grew up on. I have immense respect for the early pioneers of SFX, and their work still has a special place in my film-buff-soul. But although I remember enjoying Day of the Triffids as child, I am honestly appalled at how bad it is by today's standards - and I'm not talking about the clunky and embarrassing effects. I'm talking about the god-awful script, heinously bad acting, and all-round-abysmal storytelling. What a dire movie! I couldn't stick with it longer than 20 minutes before giving up in disgust.My love and nostalgia for old movies has finally found its limit, and it's called Day of the Triffids.Note: Enjoyment not helped by the worst quality transfer I've ever seen, which was grainy, washed-out, faded, and distorted due to not being presented in the correct aspect ratio. The audio also sounded like a 19th century wax cylinder!Glad it was free on Amazon.

Last night I watched an episode of the old "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea". In "The Price of Doom", you had a decent story and some very good actors...and a creature that looked like it cost $3.48 to make...at the most. Because the 'monster' was so ridiculously bad, it was hard to enjoy the show. It was so bad that famed sci-fi author Harlan Ellison disavowed responsibility for this episode and he asked his name be stricken from the show!!I mention all this because "Day of the Triffids" is pretty much the same experience as watching "The Price of Doom". It had a neat script, very good acting and monsters that were so laughably bad...even by 1960s standards. As a result it seriously took me out of the experience and made the film quite silly.In this near future film, meteorites strike the Earth and inexplicably make plants, triffids, turn into malevolent flesh- eating monsters. At the same time, most of the folks on the planet go blind...so it's up to a few to figure out how to survive and fight off the incredibly ridiculous creatures!Good script, good acting, dopey monsters...nuff said about this one.

This film looks very very dated, but it has its moments. The beginning is none too bad, but there is an opportunity here . This film should be be remade, and with the right budget , stars, and special effects, it would be a roaring success.When i saw this film in 1962, i always felt something was not quite right, probably because the effects were so limited. The problem with cult films is that they tend to be low budget productions, and if they are old, they simply don't past the test of time.Students and makers of Science fiction work, should see this film, and see why i think like War of the Worlds, with Tom Cruise, which was a fine remake could be either equalled or bettered, if this story was retold.

I saw this piece of mindless junk when it came out and enjoyed it immensely. It borrows heavily from "War of the Worlds," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," and maybe "The Little Shop of Horrors." And it follows a pattern familiar to any fan of inexpensive science fiction stories.First, there must be a scientist around to help discover the best way to destroy the illegal aliens. In this case, that would be Kieron Moore. The scientist usually has a pretty assistant. Right. Janette Scott, who really IS attractive.There has to be a jack of all trades, too; somebody to keep the generators running, who knows how to fix a flat tire and run a boat, who is handy with radios and carpentry. Howard Keel knows all that stuff. He gets most of the screen time because the scientist, due to clumsy plotting, is stuck away on an isolated lighthouse off the Cornish coast. A GOOD lousy cheap science fiction movie would have put the scientist and the hero together in the same frame, with the scientist providing the advice and the hero providing the action.The hero should pick up a girl friend along the way. Early on, Howard Keel picks up Janina Faye as a companion but since she's only twelve years old, that won't do. This is "The Day of the Triffids," not "Lolita." So Keel and Janina travel to France, where Keel is able to consort with Nicole Maurey, although little develops between them, and frankly I'd prefer Joan Weldon as an affiliate because she was a singer with the San Francisco Opera and because she looked just swell in an Army helmet as the scientist's niece in "Them!" Believe me, there is no turn on like a woman in battle dress. Another part of any good rotten cheap story of alien invasions or monsters from the bowels of the earth, if they're British, as this one is, is that they feature some familiar American face, usually an over-the-hill star. In this instance, it's the baritone profundo Howard Keel but elsewhere it's Brian Donlevy, Gene Evans, Richard Carlson, Forrest Tucker, or even, improbably, Sonny Tufts who, by the 1950s, must have had only the hint of a liver left.The story? These man-eating plants are somehow activated by a meteor shower that turns everyone blind except those who, like Keel, were unable or unwilling to watch it. The shabby looking things are crawling all over the planet eating people. They're attracted to noise, perhaps because they themselves can only produce a staccato clucking sound like that of a pair of dice being shaken in a cardboard container. How does the scientist figure out a way of destroying them? No power on earth could drag the answer out of me but if you've read H. G. Well's "War of the Worlds" you know it's not going to turn out to be a ray gun. Final scene: Crowds climbing the steps to a church while chimes of triumph ring on the sound track. The originality is stunning.