The Day of the Triffids

The Day of the Triffids film released in 1963. I saw it at the New Lyric theater in our neighborhood on a Saturday matinee in late 1963 or early 1964. So I was 12. That was also a scary movie and a creepy science fiction story. The frightening part was that the meteor shower made everyone blind before the plants started eating people. These plants, the triffids, in the movie are alien creatures that came from spores brought to Earth by the meteor shower.  

I thought it was a great twist that in the end that in frantic desperation the hero suddenly learns that the alien plant creatures can be killed by saltwater. Cool.

Many years later I realized the movie was based on a science fiction novel of the same name by John Wyndam written in 1951.  I read the book in April 1985. It was different from the movie in some significant ways for example the plants

were an experimental species that escaped from the lab after 99% of the population is blinded by the meteor shower. This story is much more and end of the world dystopian novel without any kind of happy ending using saltwater. No, this was more about the apocalypse and how people cope with the chaos rather than a scary monster story. It is about the self-destruction of human society through scientific carelessness and maybe biological warfare. It was still a great book. 

John Wyndham had written other apocalyptic science fiction novels and I had intended to read at least one more but have not done it yet. 

I just did a quick search and it looks like the public library has several of his books on the shelves.