There are bright lights in the sky nearly the whole human race has been rendered blind and helpless and sentient flesh-eating plants stalk the survivors in John Wyndham's futuristic chiller.
With a new version of Day of the Triffids about to hit the screens this is probably a very good time to review this 1981 BBC adaption of the classic John Wyndham story.
A large proportion of the Earth's population is rendered blind by a mysterious meteor shower. Only a few lucky people who hadn't seen the spectacular lights retain their sight. One of these is Bill Masen played by John Duttine who gives a splendid, commanding central performance. He and the other few sighted individuals left have to agree on how to look after the blind population but they haven't factored in the presence of the triffids, a deadly plant which had been used as a source of oil before the crisis.
The story was adapted by Douglas Livingstone into a six part half hour series for the BBC in 1981. The beautiful latex triffids models, which is what most people will remember from this programme, were created by Steve Drewett and are one of the best 'monster' costumes to come out of the BBC at this time. Having said that technology has moved on considerably from that time and they no longer have the power to scare that they did, however, director Ken Hannam uses them cleverly and does not showing too much. The sound design is what still holds the fear factor. The use of a rhythmic knocking sound whenever the triffids are close will still cause a shiver to run up your spine. If you want to keep your child quiet show them this and remind them that triffids can only find you via sound vibrations, it worked for my parents!
This is an excellent adaption from the golden age of BBC drama. While the production values may look a little primitive to a modern audience the story has lost none of its power to thrill. So suspend your disbelief, sit back and let the story wash over you. Remember in 1981 this sort of drama was commonplace and not just special event television. But there is nothing commonplace about this adaption.
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Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play This early 80s BBC adaptation of John Wyndham&39;s cult novel is more faithful to the original story than the controversial 1962 film version that preceded it When the world wakes up blind it is left to a a few sighted survivors to work out a future for humanity - and to see off the threat posed by man-eating Triffid plants
This early 80s BBC adaptation of John Wyndham's cult novel is more faithful to the original story than the controversial 1962 film version that preceded it. When the world wakes up blind, it is left to a a few sighted survivors to work out a future for humanity - and to see off the threat posed by man-eating Triffid plants.
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