The Day of the Triffids was both a classic sci-fi novel and movie that dealt with killer plants, or at least what seemed to resemble killer plants from outer space.
The creatures come to earth via a meteor shower that leaves many people blind, and it’s indeed a terrifying premise to think you can’t see what can potentially slaughter you.
Of course, this is one of the most important rules of an effective horror story, what you can’t see is actually much more frightening than what you can.
With the remake of Triffids being set up at Sam Raimi’s production company, Ghost House, and Neil Cross, creator of the acclaimed BBC drama Luther, writing the script, this means there’s hope this will be taken much more seriously than the usual, tossed off horror remake.
As many remakes often promise us, it’s going back to the original source material, which means the resulting film could be a much fresher take on the story than doing a movie karaoke, shot for shot remake. And of course, the story will in all likelihood be updated for modern day with new twists and turns. (Being that Raimi created memorable possessed trees in the first Evil Dead, the killer plants of Triffids could be right up his alley).
Also aboard producing is Don Murphy, who was one of the producers on the Transformers series. There’s also a Guillermo Del Toro connection, and he’s got his hands in so many projects it’s soon going to be six degrees of Del Toro instead of Kevin Bacon. The Del Toro projects Cross worked on is Mama, a movie Guillermo produced, and he also was involved with the screenplay for Del Toro’s big, upcoming sci-fi flick Pacific Rim, which seems to be in a similar vein as Triffids, meaning monsters from outer space.
By today’s standards, Triffids is probably pretty fun to look back on, something you can show your kids without terrorizing them. Can the current gang involved in the remake deliver something genuinely scary with it for modern day audiences? Or something tongue in cheek that’s cary and fun without being insulting to the original fans? Here’s hoping the early promise we’re reporting so far will indeed pay off down the road.
