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Load of rubbish!!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It was in colour! It looked fine for an older film, pretty soft but fine I guess. I didn't really like the music but other than that it was fine. I liked the idea of them going blind but the plants weren't that creepy. It lacked the old-school special effect that I was looking forward to!

The book by John Wyndham "Day of the Triffids" is excellent. The British TV series based on the book,was also excellent. This 1962 version is terrible, full of unrealistic monstrous Triffids and with none of the social statements in the book and British series, 1981. The 1981 mini-series, which I saw first, was much more faithful to the book. Unfortunately, it is very hard to find the mini-series on DVD and it was only shown three times n the US, on the A&E channel which was not very good quality. It was one of those rare and wonderful productions, like the TENKO series, which was only shown on A&E and does not seem to be shown again since the early 90s.

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.

Having read the intelligent and literate tale on which this film was based, I was a little disheartened to see that the film-makers had effectively "dumbed down" the scenario into a straightforward globe-trotting adventure yarn. Saddled with a budget hardly enough to do the Triffids justice and blighted with an overly-wordy script that seems to sap life from the very film itself, DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS is not a bad film but just a flawed and distinctly average one. The killer blow is that it is based on a fascinating work of science fiction (one which many people consider to be one of the very best) which makes the sheer mediocrity of the production hurt real bad.Ignoring the source novel for a moment, taken alone DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS is an amiable enough example of the genre film before all good science fiction went on to appear on television screens instead of the cinema. The budget, although low, takes in some good locations, and the Triffids themselves are immaculately designed even if their appearance is a little false (sometimes they look like nothing more than a man writhing under a rubber mat). I love these cheesy monsters personally, especially during the fascinating finale seems to have been inspired by the short story Leiningen vs. the Ants and definitely does the tale justice, even if it is just one such scene in the film.The film-makers attempt to work around the budget (or lack thereof) by depicting a train crash through sound effects alone and concentrating on implication rather than explicit views. The film is actually best at the beginning, when our hero traipses around an eerie and deserted London full of frightened blind people; a similarly feeling of unease and isolation is achieved in the recent British hit 28 DAYS LATER but to a much greater degree than is shown here. Unfortunately the music is rather lacking in menace and some of the supporting cast are not very good in their roles – especially the very bland little girl.Howard Keel makes for a solid hero, however, and there are some nice performances from the likes of Janette Scott (although she screams too much). Old favourite Mervyn Johns appears as an old butler and there are some over-the-top, drunken convicts to add to the fun. The tagged-on happy ending appears to be a little false, but at least the spectacular meteor shower which opens the film is impressive enough. Ironically the best scenes were later added to the film after it clocked in under time – these were directed by genre pro Freddie Francis and depict a couple of scientists trapped under siege in a remote lighthouse. A kind of prototype NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD if you will. DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS is not a particularly great film, but genre fans should definitely get a kick out of the fantastic premise and the Triffids themselves.