Day of the Triffids (1962)

This adaptation of John Wyndham's 1951 novel about carnivorous, mobile, alien plants feasting on humans after most are blinded following a meter shower, is no where near as good as the campy 1981 British mini-series staring John Duttine. This 'Day of the Triffids' features musical and later 'Dallas' star Howard Keel as its lead, conveniently protracted from the blindness because he had his eyes covered in gauze at the time of the meteor shower, owing to a surgery he was recovering from that is never explained in any detail. Early in the film Keel wakes up to find the hospital seemingly abandoned and wrecked, he removes his eye bandage to discover the world plunged into horror. This motif was later borrowed for early scenes in both '28 Days Later' and 'The Walking Dead' TV series, both about zombies, which the walking plants named 'Triffids' essentially are here. Keel, a sailor, eventually makes his way to France and joins up with a small group of survivors, with the movie occasionally checking in on its B story about a couple of scientists, who are also a couple romantically, searching for a way to kill the Triffids. The film is mostly un-extraordinary, even dull at places, though it does have sequences of tension and horror, particularly those centered on non central characters, like those on an airplane where everyone's gone blind and Keel's managed to pick up on their radio transmissions. I had low expectations but still a bit of a disappoint, see the mini-series instead. *1/2