Day of the Triffids (1981) DVD

Day of the Triffids is a 1981 TV series adaptation of the brilliant book 'The Day of the Triffids' by John Wyndham.

Having read the book, I can honestly say that the TV adaptation stays very faithful to the storyline and successfully managed to atomise the main plot points and themes.

So what is Day of the Triffids all about?

Well, it's cult sci-fi and tells the story of a meteor shower that blinds nearly all of the world's population and describes the terrible fate that awaits the band of survivors of this global disaster.

What's great about the book and TV series is that a number of themes are explored; survival, the breakdown of law and order, competition for dwindling food resources, whether the meteor shower and the triffids are linked, bio-terrorism, and whether the meteor shower was a new space-based weapons technology that went disastrously wrong.

So, Day of the Triffids is heavily topical and brimming with ideas. Intelligent sci-fi dealing with an intelligent approach to sensitive issues. For example, a number of approaches to how best to survive in a horrifically changed world are explored. What should the ratio of blind to sighted be in a colony? What should be the ratio of women to men, for example? Should polygamy be considered necessary to help boost the surviving population?

We also get to see the immediate collapse of social order and the lengths that some will go to with regard to their inhumanity in their desperate attempt to survive. For example, one scene involving a man randomly shooting at a group of blind survivors is particularly chilling.

The Triffids are wonderful creations and, for the time, are a brilliant accomplishment in the field of special effects. Even today, they manage to instill a sense of fear and are chill. A canny Hollywood producer would certainly be wise to consider an up-to-date adaptation.

Having watched the series at the tender age of 11 I remember being completely enthralled by the fictional world of Day of the Triffids and wondering whether such a terrible reality might one day come about. it was still very much the height of the Cold War, so an apocalyptic drama of this type would have played to people's subconscious fears of nuclear armageddon.

So, it was with trepidation that I watched the series again, all these years later, now that it has been given a new lease of life on DVD. I need not have worried, from the haunting and threatening green-tinged opening credits on, Day of the Triffids has survived the intervening years remarkably well, and I award it a solid rating of

8/10

Recommended.
Great series, only suffers due to a lack of extras on the DVD - all you get is the series alone. It would have been nice to see a documentary, featurette or interview with cast and crew.

Comments

[Josef H. Buerger III]

I've been looking for a copy of this BBC production for nearly 20 years. There are plenty in REGION 2 & REGION 4 DVDs but nothing in REGION 1 (NORTH AMERICA). Please advise if the (BBC 6 part series) is available in REGION 1. There are thousands of AMERICANS who want this series as badly as me! There is a 1962 version called "DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS" that is available here but it's storyline isn't even close to what JOHN WYNDHAM wrote!