filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Rexanne It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

azathothpwiggins THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS answers the question, "What sort of carnivorous plants could catch and consume a human being?". Well, an organized, mobile, extremely cunning army of them! After a freak meteor shower renders most of the world population blind, the sighted few remaining must find a way to survive against the alien threat of the title. Bill Masen (Howard Keel), a merchant marine recovering from eye surgery, is saved by his bandages, and seeks others w/ whom he can unite against the vicious vegetation. Simultaneously, an alcoholic scientist (Kieron Moore) and his long-suffering, biologist wife (Janette Scott) are holed up in a lighthouse, trying to figure out a way to defeat the menace. TRIFFIDS is a well-executed sci-fi horror film, taking what could easily have been a joke, and making a fantastic, suspenseful drama out of it. The scenes aboard an airplane in flight and a ship at sea are particularly effective in getting the point across: This is a global tragedy that could result in the extinction of the human race. Highly recommended...

Leofwine_draca 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.

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.

Neil Welch 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.