The Day Of The Triffids
Today’s Trillion $ Movie is the 1962 sci-fi thriller The Day of the Triffids, based on John Wyndham’s novel of an eerie meteor shower that blinds most of the human race, leaving them helpless to fend for 
themselves against the triffids — a mutant strain of carnivorous Outer Space plants. The thing that’s creepy about these gigantic plants — they can move around and pounce on their hapless prey.
Fans of the novel complain that the movie’s a cheap imitation, and it does seem overly melodramatic, including the focus on an alcoholic scientist and his wife (played by Kieron Moore and Janette Scott) who are constantly bickering, as if they were auditioning for parts in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The fate of the world rests in the hands of a diffident sailor (Howard Keel), who is spared the blindness because his eyes were bandaged the night of the meteor shower. In a prelude, he’s shown recuperating in his hospital room while a nurse lights a cigarette for him. Now, those were the days…
The Day of the Triffids has its flaws, but it remains quite chilling and horrifying, ushering in a new era of post-apocalyptic zombie movies. 28 Days Later owes a particular debt to this film. It was so influential that there’s a lyric in The Rocky Horror Picture Show that goes, “And I really got hot when I saw Janette Scott/Fight a triffid that spits poison and kills.”
Hope you enjoy it, and do return again next Friday for another Trillion $ Movie.
