It still *is* scary, as a quick watch of the DVD will demonstrate. Since the triffids are plants the whole “looked like rubber” thing wasn’t and isn’t an issue. And the triffids themselves are only half of the threat: the other is that civilisation has spectacularly collapsed worldwide and the killer plants are simply taking advantage of an already-chaotic situation.
It helps that it was made in the era before knowing irony and every character being a smart-arse and so the whole thing is taken deadly seriously.
Rather reductive review for what may be one of the finest series the BBC provided in 80s – the opening episode in the hospital is superb, it has the most shit-scary title sequence of perhaps any programme ever. It is however a rather relentlessly depressing watch – mass blindness, carnivorous plants, murderous looters, plague, euthanasia etc. I was allowed to watch this when I was 5 folks. What were my parents thinking?
It didn’t even have a happy ending, the survivors just got the hell out of there and we had to assume they were safe. No guarantees, though! I suppose they made it like the book.
Frank Jackdaw
February 14, 2010 at 4:27 pm
No eye-patch. At the time, it was bloody scary… and certainly better than the 2009 remake.
Matty
November 19, 2011 at 6:20 pm
It still *is* scary, as a quick watch of the DVD will demonstrate. Since the triffids are plants the whole “looked like rubber” thing wasn’t and isn’t an issue. And the triffids themselves are only half of the threat: the other is that civilisation has spectacularly collapsed worldwide and the killer plants are simply taking advantage of an already-chaotic situation.
It helps that it was made in the era before knowing irony and every character being a smart-arse and so the whole thing is taken deadly seriously.
Sidney Balmoral James
October 12, 2021 at 6:21 pm
Rather reductive review for what may be one of the finest series the BBC provided in 80s – the opening episode in the hospital is superb, it has the most shit-scary title sequence of perhaps any programme ever. It is however a rather relentlessly depressing watch – mass blindness, carnivorous plants, murderous looters, plague, euthanasia etc. I was allowed to watch this when I was 5 folks. What were my parents thinking?
THX 1139
October 13, 2021 at 12:05 am
It didn’t even have a happy ending, the survivors just got the hell out of there and we had to assume they were safe. No guarantees, though! I suppose they made it like the book.