User reviews

I started with all possible good intentions: it was a BBC production and I am a fan of Doctor Who and even Torchwood; I have seen the original Day of the Triffids and I liked it (even if I thought the premise to be pretty hard to believe) and I was prepared to enjoy it as a holiday release, with not much substance in it.

This being said, I really enjoyed the start, even if clearly beset with budget issues. I replaced the set in my mind and went on. The premise was a bit ridiculous, but that was in the book, so OK. Then Joely Richardson entered the scene and it all went bad. I have seen her in other movies and she was a decent actress. So either my memory plays tricks on me or the director messed it up. Badly! All her lines were out of place, her behavior like taken from a blond girl joke and her acting appalling. Eddie Izzard did a decent role as the psychopath trying to take over London, the rest of the stars just played average and mostly pointless roles, roles which could have been played by any other actor.

The ending was a chaos of irrational behavior, bad acting, predictability and pointless narration supposed to "open our eyes". The ending really messed things up, both from the standpoint of character development and end feeling.

Bottom line: decent effort, but ultimately a failed one.

Two stars for effort of the cast with such a poor script. Started off OKay with a similar premise as the book, but totally, completely lost-the-plot early on. It turned into a very silly comic-book horror story full of very old and very tired clichés.

The book was never meant to be a 'horror story' about man-eating plants, but about us, about humanity, or a commentary on "Human Nature". For example, even when faced with a common enemy and such destruction, 'Man is still his own worst Enemy', is just one of the many themes explored in the book.

I will stick with the 1981 TV co-production version, which remains the best adaptation of this classic literary science-fiction novel.

With modern production capabilities, this version could have been the most brilliant rendering of Wyndham's book, but it wasn't. The CGId triffids from the leaves upwards were fair depictions of Wyndham's description but the speedily creeping tendrils at the bottom were more reminiscent of the Evil Dead than the Day of the Triffids. The lack of the three stumpy legs on which the plants 'hobble' and (through which they obtained the name Tri-ffed), as well as the hammer appendages through by they communicate with an indecipherable and creepy kind of Morse code (replacing this with typical Bug-Eyed-Monster growls), really wrecked the essence of the title.

What we got was not 'The Day of the Triffids' but 'The Night of the Salivating Foxglove' As normal, the script suffered from 'BBC Disease' - the sacrificing of literary accuracy for 'Social Relevance', which was taken to such extremes that it threw away any relationship with the original story and could only be described as supremely silly.

Eagerly anticipated, a sad anticlimax! better by far is the 1981 production starring John Duttine.

This is the first time I've seen Eddie izzard in anything serious and I don't like him playing a bad guy lol. You have to approach this film with a "tongue in cheek " attitude and you'll be fine. As the triffids are a wee bit silly. I enjoyed it. My mother did not.

Britain, present day. Oil from a genetically altered walking carnivorous plant saves the world from the harmful use of fossil fuels. We take advantage of them, however, and when the majority of our planet's population is instantly blinded, these Triffids escape and we now have to deal with both them and this sudden(perhaps too much so?) collapse of society. This focuses on Dr. Masen(Scott) who studies them(just as his parents did until his mother died and he lost contact with his father), the reporter Jo(Richardson) and the mysterious and pragmatic Torrence(a nicely menacing Izzard). We see how the military, the religious institutions and regular people react to this turn of events, and how some sighted are willing to give up everything to save those who are not, while others frown upon that. I have not read the book, nor watched another version of this... I hear that it is smarter than this lets it be. This does still comment on things and have compelling themes, such as cynicism, balance with nature and naiveté. It takes off right away and keeps to a good pace, and is consistently interesting and entertaining. The acting and the cast are great. FX are marvelous. The production values are very nice, it's filmed well with effective use of hand-held camera and sharply cut. There is tension and suspense, and the chaos is convincingly rendered. One complaint I hear that I can understand(I get that this is also not the same as the original, but I don't know what the changes are) is that it is too flashy, too Hollywood. British apocalypse fiction is more about the day after than the event, unlike the American ones. And this is listed as action(among other genres), and it really shouldn't be. The decision was undoubtedly because it's easier to sell, and it's unfortunate. Still, if this sounds appealing to you, the time investment of three hours may feel worth it. It does to me. There is a bit of bloody violence and disturbing content in this. I recommend this to those looking for a "end of the world" story that has you thinking somewhat. 7/10

The people who made this adaptation assumed the following:

That the average British punter watching this is so thick, that if you cracked open his or her skull with a claw hammer, ate their brain, and crapped it back into their head their IQ would be increased billions of times. Take this piece of script for example:

"The Triffids have escaped!" "What are the Triffids?" "They are bad and they escaped!" "The Triffids ESCAPED!?" "YES The Triffids ESCAPED!" "TRIFFIDS ESCAPED!" "TRIFFIDS ESCAPED!" "That means the Triffids have got out!" "Yes, the Triffids have got out. The Triffids are BAD, and now they've GOT OUT!"

Of course, I can't quite convey it as stupidly in writing. Dumbing down doesn't begin to describe the depth and magnitude of this level of cultural ruin. The TV adaptation of the early 80s was infinitely better in every way. Not just the script and direction. Even the camera work, the special effects, were vastly better. Our only hope is to cull those in our population who think this sort of guff is worth the license fee, and bring back the death penalty specifically for the sort of muff-botherers who make this drivel. Scrap the BBC if it can make excrement like this, sacrificing Radio 4 may be hard, but it would be worth it so that this sort of thing would no longer come into the world. We need to see the scriptwriters, directors, producers and funders publicly tortured and executed on TV instead, it would be a great moral improvement on this level of depravity.

Great book, there have been a couple of adaptations over the years, which were great, true to the text, but suffered from lack of budget. This appears to have the budget, but strangely starts off ok, but gets worser and worser! My bad grammar is on purpose. They should have let the triffids eat them after the first forty minutes of episode one!!

This has very little to do with the book written by John Wyndham. This movie/show, whatever, is a total and unparalleled piece of garbage. Watching it would have made John Wyndham turn in his grave. This book deserves a show of "Survivors" quality.

The makers of this version took a great classic, removed all that made this book great and substituted it with their version of pseudo science that makes no sense. The book is a psychological drama of the world gone blind. The triffids (that have nothing in common with triffids portrayed in this movie) and mysterious plague are additional elements that complicate the situation.

This movie/show makes it all about triffids and their "biology". As a biologist, I can only say that whoever wrote this part had no clue what they were talking about. This so called "biology" of triffids is on par with that of the "Alien" (when they make an incision of the alien, "blood" burns through several floors of the spaceship, yet the scalpel is undamaged)...

I thought this adaptation was in large, good. I was only 5 when the original was on TV, so couldn't remember much about the story, save the giant man-eating plants and some blind people.

I thought the actors did the best they could with a less-than-brilliant script. Dougray Scott was good as the main protagonist as was Eddie Izzard in his antagonist role.

The real surprise in this version though was Joely Richardson. Although a talented actress, she must have been suffering an off-day, as her acting was dreadful. Could've been the script, but then again, most of the other actors managed okay. Top marks for the BBC though for managing to secure Brian Cox and "A Redgrave".

All in all, good fun but with a few weak bits.

Before I start, I've just got to bring up the sentimental fact of how much I prefer the original film adaptation from the 1960s. Yes, I realise that movie was heavily flawed but I also recognise its more enjoyable aspects and think it's most certainly earned a cult following after all these years (while the movie may not be considered a major classic by the majority of people, there's no point of contention about why it shouldn't have that status). And by the way, I have yet to see BBC's first attempt at a Day of the Triffids miniseries, which they did back in the snazzy 1980s. But after watching this latest modernised iteration of theirs, it only makes me yearn for the past versions and has me appreciating them a whole heck of a lot more now (sorry, vintage creature features are more my domain).

You all know the story by now; a fairly levelheaded scientist who works as a professional botanist studying exotic species of carnivorous plants (with a real flair for specifically researching Triffids) is, by pure chance, one of only a handful of lucky people who weren't affected by the dazzling display of a meteor-shower's light-show passing overhead, in which everyone was left permanently blinded as a result of witnessing the nocturnal event. So then these big, mobilising plant monsters of some vague, ambiguous origin (my fan-theory, and personal preference, is that they're more than likely extraterrestrial in nature) are constantly on the attack as they aggressively begin to invade numerous cities on a global mass-scale, rapidly spreading throughout the entire world as they proliferate and take over populated human regions, thus steadily decreasing mankind and establishing themselves as the planet's new dominant beings. Along the way, he teams up with a lady friend and young schoolgirl as they all try to find refugee far away from the grisly greenery. Oh, how ever will the dwindling groups of surviving people manage to escape from this overgrown garden of floral madness?

In all honesty, this 2000s miniseries is way more boring than it has any right to be. It commits the cardinal sin of being uninterestingly dull, thanks to a rather lousy execution of its quite compelling sci-fi premise. As written on paper, this is a very interesting story idea... but too bad it just didn't seem to translate all that well from page to screen. At most, the whole production quality from the actors' performances and visual effects might be marginally better than something you'd see playing on the Sci-Fi Channel (now that's really insulting). I also don't think it's hyperbolic of me to say that I'd rather take the campy acting from the "cheesy" old '60s version than be settled with this compilation of static, uninterested faces with little to no distinguishing personalities from the newer one (seriously, they all look bored stiff to be there). And this is where the root of the problem stems from (no pun intended). It really excels at the highest level of mediocrity and I don't know where the fault of its incompetence lies; either it's the actors not caring enough or the director just didn't know how to properly direct them.

You don't really get a good sense of the ensuing apocalypse that's taken our civilisation by storm because it never allows for that kind of epic scope (didn't have the budget for such a feat to be accomplished). I pondered for the longest time about what would happen if you tackled a Triffid head-on with a lawnmower or hacked one up up into little tiny pieces with a strimmer, but they never think to try it or even address the possibility that it might do the trick (I always thought that would've massacred the whole lot of them). So after all these years, this question of mine has still gone unanswered. As for the Triffids themselves... they just aren't alluring to look at like how the old ones are. Personally, I thought the Triffid cameo in Joe Dante's Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) was scarier. As for the special-effects, well... they aren't that special. Computer-generated imagery is something that has to be handled with the best possible care for it to appear convincing, which is hardly ever the case (even in big-budget Hollywood blockbusters). But this time, the CGI looks genuinely bad (almost like it hasn't even been properly finished).

While modern viewers maybe put-off by the outdated effects, there's no denying that the '60s and '80s incarnations simply had more charm due to their so-called "primitive effects". They had to come up with those things from scratch and at the time, they were working with the bare minimum of essential materials that were readily available for the prop department to use at their disposal (there was a charming simplicity to it all). Say whatever you want about the older interpretations, but at least they weren't like this intangible mess of a weed pile! And the poor quality CGI makes the horror elements fall flat, which was another contributing factor that hindered its enjoyability for me (although saying that, there were admittedly some decent moments of mild suspense within the first episode's duration). Considering the fact this was a TV production, I was originally thinking about cutting it some slack until I remembered that ITV's Primeval was made at around roughly the same time as this (so really, there's no excuse). With the recent War of the Worlds (2019) miniseries adaptation, I'm glad that the BBC have really stepped up their game in terms of a moderately hefty VFX budget for television.

If you're just aching for an entertaining monster movie involving killer vegetation creatures, then I suggest you look elsewhere. There's plenty of other choices out there, so you'll be able to get your fix somewhere else (there's certainly no shortage of them around, they're common as muck). Some better flick options to do with horrific plant-like creatures would be; 1993's The Crawlers, 2008's The Ruins, 1982's Swamp Thing, 2005's Man-Thing, 1960's The Little Shop of Horrors and its 1986 musical remake (the ultimate horror film to feature a man-eating alien plant). And if you've got a reasonably good sense of utterly daft humour, even 1978's Attack of the Killer Tomatoes if you're in the right frame-of-mind and feel up for it. These other films will be sure to satisfy your thirst for deadly vines, thorns, tendrils, leaves and seaweed (you know, all that good stuff).