#84 - Day of the Triffids

Day of the Triffids (1962)
Slightly Trashy
Directed by: Steve Sekely. Written by: Philip Yordan based on the novel by John Wyndham.

Plot: Okay, to be quite honest, this is one of those movies that I saw when I was a little kid and don’t really remember all that well, but it really left a big impact on me. It’s about giant space plants called Triffids which invade Earth and I think they eat people or something… oh yeah, and everybody goes blind for some reason. Actually, it’s sort of like an episode of Dr. Who only longer and Tom Baker isn’t in it…

Review: Even though I don’t really remember any of the specifics of the movie, it scared the living crap out of me when I watched it (it scared my brother even more, haha. There’s a part where a dog gets eaten by a Triffid and that really upset him. We used to not be allowed to watch movies with animals in them because he would get so worried that they were going to get hurt. Sometimes he cried. That was why I had to watch movies like Alien when he was away). Ten years later, whenever I hear a weird rattling sound, I assume it’s Triffids.

In fact, this movie is so deeply engrained in my consciousness that when I think of killer space plants, this comes to mind before Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Little Shop of Horrors or The Thing from Another World. Not that I really spend all that much time thinking about killer space plants, but it does tend to come up a little bit more often than one would expect. I was, I think, easy to scare as a child. Actually, scratch that, I’m easy to scare now. I got scared by a sheep a couple days ago. It made a sound when I didn’t expect it and really freaked me out. I jump whenever the phone rings and lose my shit when I hear squirrels in the attic.

I blame this movie. If I hadn’t seen this, I would probably have grown up to be a normal person and not be terrified of plants. Also, if I hadn’t seen Star Wars when I was five, I wouldn’t be such a nerd. Oh, and if I hadn’t seen Kate Winslett naked in Titanic when I was seven, I wouldn’t be such a perverted sex maniac. I hope my parents read this and see what an inadequate job they did raising me (as if that wasn’t apparent already). Just for the record, I am sitting in the dark, naked, eating peanut butter and listening to "Bananaphone" backwards. Thought I might just put that image in your mind.

If I had a mobile I'd take a pic for you.

Did I ever mention that I’m a little too open about myself? Whatever. I blame this movie for that too. Also, I'm a compulsive liar. But that's neither here nor there...

No, it’s not the greatest movie ever, but it had a very profound effect on me and that counts for half the glass. Or something...

Favourite Part: There are plants fucking eating people, what could be better than that? Yes, it was made in the sixties so it wasn’t mega graphic or anything but still, the thought was there.

Other versions: According to IMDb, there were versions made in 1981 and 2009, both for TV.

Sequels: No.


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