Dzień Tryfidów

I won't say anything bad about the special effects - in my opinion, the appearance of the triffids in this movie is solid when keeping in mind the options in 1963, the moving plants do not look ridiculous at all. What does seem ridiculous, however, is the storyline, in many scenes, it is terribly naive and uninteresting, but is also divided into two parallel narratives, which are not related to each at all. The whole storyline with Kieron Moore and Janette Scott had been added to make the movie longer, so it ends up completely different from John Wyndham's novella and fabricates a really stupid happy ending. In terms of being faithful to the original literary masterpiece and its quality in general, the 1981 British miniseries is much better. (16.02.2019)

Poster tagline: BEWARE THE TRIFFIDS... they grow... know... walk... talk... stalk... and KILL!! To bemoan the fact that an old monster-horror film from the naive 'Golden Age of Science Fiction of the 50s and 60s' neutered John Wyndham's novel is like mocking Steven Seagal for never playing Hamlet. It's just completely pointless and counterproductive. Even in modest conditions, when they didn't have a rich studio like Universal behind them, the Brits managed to make a cheap horror film that looks more expensive than it really was, and even though some of the FX scenes have aged a lot (the plane crash), it's not a total bust. The triffids' costumes are quite fine for their time and the ending in the lighthouse tower builds up nicely. Perhaps the assistant directorial supervision of Hammer legend Freddie Francis, whose name did not appear in the credits, also contributed to the quite acceptable result. (09.12.2012)

A total trashing of a brilliant novel that mixes all its wonderful attributes (despair, ideas, action) into the form of a standard monster B-movie, of which there were plenty at the time. Nature's tricks are turned into aliens and the intelligent protagonist into a boring macho guy. I don’t like comparing the printed versions to their audiovisual counterparts, given my sympathies usually lie with the typewriters rather than the camera, and here the result is so barbaric and rapey compared to the book that I simply can't help but make the comparison. Also, if it wasn't for the cult-like nature of the book, no one would care about the film today. It’s paradoxical that it was imprinted in the subconscious of the audience... (02.09.2007)