Little Shop of Triffids

Published in 1951, John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids has had quite the legacy, with three film/television adaptations and plenty of blatant referencing in The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later’s handling of apocalyptic hospital scenarios. The first of these, 1962’s Steve Sekely-directed (with, apparently, some later help by Freddie Francis) I snow streaming on Amazon Prime.

Quick Plot: Navy-man Bill Mason (the incredibly broad-shouldered Howard Keel) is recovering from surgery to restore his vision, meaning his bandaged eyes deny him the chance to witness a once-in-a-lifetime meteor shower that’s keeping the rest of London entranced. Lucky for him. The next morning, a now-seeing Bill discovers anyone who watched the out of this world light show has been blinded.

Bill slowly travels through a quickly decaying Europe, picking up a plucky orphan named Susan along the way. The pair have to fight off not only the increasingly dangerous hoards of the blind, but also the titular killer plants. Triffids are large, green, carnivorous, and seemingly immune from any kind of attack. 

Humanity’s only real chance against the triffids just might be in the hands of an angry, alcoholic researcher and his pushover wife. As chaos mounts across the city and rural landscapes, a softer Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf-ish prelude between bickering spouses slowly morphs into a scientific breakthrough.

The Day of the Triffids is a fairly loose adaptation of John Wyndham’s novel, retaining the concept and character basics but taking some fairly wide detours in plot specifics. It’s not a shocking decision, since polygamy wasn’t quite the cinematic rage in the early ‘60s. 

Despite side-stepping some of the more risqué elements from the novel, The Day of the Triffids still manages to work as something occasionally rather scary. The triffids themselves aren’t at Audrey II levels of engineering, but there’s something supremely wrong about their design (both in the visuals and sound) that works on a creepy level. The mass blindness is treated with heft. If you were wondering how a pilot who suddenly went blind would handling flying a plane, the answer is of course, “not well.”

Effective scares aside, The Day of the Triffids suffers from some messy storytelling.The pacing never quite clicks, and when I read that the entire island research subplot was added after principal filming ended because the producers realized they only had a 57 minute movie, I wasn’t terribly surprised. 

That being said, The Day of the Triffids worked for me, as it probably would for anyone with a hunger for cinematic apocalypses,. You can see its influence on later work, and it has a certain “the plants are trying to eat us” charm that stands the test of time. 

High Points

It’s a movie that combines killer plants with mass blindness and an apocalypse. What’s not to like?

Low Points 

Yes, it was 1962, but it’s still a shame that most of the women play the important role of standing immobilized by fear and screaming while their men fight the human-eating plant monsters

Lessons Learned (the Blindness Edition)

The only danger in mass blindness is that the victims might accidentally start fires

Surgeons do not perform well under the pressure of blindness

As we also learned in Jose Saramago’s Blindness, all apocalyptic eyesight-based plagues will eventually end in systematized rape

Subtitle Strangeness

For whatever reason (laziness, Martian-ness, etc.), Amazon’s subtitles are just…wrong. Observe some translations:

Dialogue: I’ll tuck you in

Subtitles: I Kentucky

Dialogue: Ms. Durham!

Subtitles: Mr. Rat!

And my favorite, which has no translation because I was too distracted trying to figure out what time travel shenanigans would have allowed Mena Suvari to star in a film made 20 years before her birth:

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Day of the Triffids had been on my to-watch list for years, so it’s great to finally have it easily accessible via Amazon Prime. While it’s no Them! Or The Thing From Another World, it’s entertaining enough on its own merits, and even more intriguing as an early example of the kind of apocalyptic horror that has become fairly common these days. Fans of the novel will probably be annoyed at some of the choices, but in the context of its time, The Day of the Triffids is an interesting capsule. 

Because Sometimes, the World Needs More Glue

In honor of this weekend's Kentucky Derby, let's take a moment to honor a few genre films with terrifying, tragic, or just plain neat references to the horrors hiding in every equine eye.

The First Power

A rather unnotable entry into the temporary possession subgenre of horror, and while any film that makes Shocker look good has its issues, this Lou Diamond Philips/Melanie Griffith's younger sister starring thriller does boast a rather terrifying death scene via loose horse stompage. That's gotta hurt! (Seriously; it kills the guy, so I'm sure it does.)

28 Days Later

No infected Mr. Eds here (thankfully, because I don't see any of us surviving that), but Danny Boyle's hard working survivors do take a surprisingly poignant moment to observe a pack of wild stallions peacefully making their way across the English countryside in the face of not-zombie mayhem. A quiet reminder that human problems are never the sole concern of the world they live in.

Doomsday

So the apocalypse has hit and you've been raised in a crowded quarantined zone for the last 30 years. Naturally, when sent over the wall to a Mad Max-meets-King Arthur's court anarchy, you'll easily be able to hop on a passing horse and race through Sherwood-y Forests better than Calamity Jane. The future is indeed a wonderful place.

The Cell

Dripping in Dali references and gooey imagery, Tarsem's 2000 thriller is a visual feast that may boast a helping or two of equine meat. From the opeinng desert ride with a dreamy J-Lo to a spliced but preserved colt decorating a corner inside the mind of serial killer Vincent D'Onofrio, The Cell includes several horse heavy references of, as the mayor of Emerald City might say, a different color. Ethereal or evil, natural or bat shit crazy, it's an intriguing ride for jockeys with vision.

Cannibal! The Musical

A story of love, lunchmeat, and a little lady named Liane (who just happens to be something of a nag).  Actually, rumor has it Trey Parker named his lead character's pet horse after a former fiancee caught with another man, so it's fitting that in the case of this Troma songfest set during the fateful Donnor Party's travels, the action kicks off with the faithless Liane galloping away from our hero to start a more exciting life with some vertically challenged trappers. She may be cruel, but at least Liane can graze happily knowing she inspired one of the film's musical highlights, "When I Was On Top of You."

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Not a horror movie you say? When was the last time you tested your endurance with a 24 hour (minus a few 10 minute naps) dance marathon in Depression era America? This 1969  Syndney Pollack film disturbs on a different level than something like The Ring, but it's hard to walk away from the no-exit squalor Jane Fonda sleepwalks inside without feeling as though your heart has been stomped on by a 1000+ pound thoroughbred. Oh, and while there are no actual horses in the film, the point--plus race aspect--coincides just fine with Kentucky Derby inspired nightmares.

The Neverending Story

Also not your typical genre film, but what child of the '80s wasn't permanently scarred watching Atreyu's loyal companion Artax drown a slow (and assumedly painful) death in a patch of surprise quicksand? An early reminder to a young audience that life can sometimes be unforgiving. They don't just shoot horses; they also pull them underground to suffocate while you sit back with tears in your eyes.

It's a Germ's World. We Just Die In It.

When you really think about it, the popularity of post apocalyptic film and fiction says some very mysterious things about the arts loving public. Are we fascinated by the all-too-possible tease of our own demise? Taking notes on what to do when disaster strikes? Actively trying to undo the damage before it becomes real? Or do we just have a soft spot for watching overgrown beards illuminated by homemade bonfires?

Whatever the reason, I too find any short story, novel, play, movie, miniseries, or religious cartoon pamphlet handed out on Halloween that’s seeped in anarchy and mass devastation to be truly fascinating. Hence, 2009‘s studio-made but straight-to-DVD released Carriers found its way up my queue faster than you could say ‘the quiet earth.’ Toss in a plague element (particularly when this viewer is nursing a hopefully non-fatal form of sore throat) and a supporting role filled by Chris Meloni and you’ve sold me well before the term PG-13 can muster even the slightest taste of discouragement. 

Quick Plot: The sun is shining as four smiling friends drive towards the beach with beers in their hands and flirtation in their eyes. It’s just like Creepshow 2...except instead of a carnivorous oil spill and porous raft, our characters are escaping a nationwide pandemic with no hope of immunity in sight.

And that’s about all I’ll say before delving into SPOILER CITY. Be warned: it’s a foul smelling land that rivals New Jersey in rotting trash and toxic fumes, but sometimes, to get to one special place you must hold your nose, close your eyes, and run faster than Danny Boyle’s infected to brave the cloud of hairspray on the way. In the case of Carriers, I want too much to discuss some of its plot and character choices to hint about it in a general review. For those who haven’t seen it, skip to the bottom (Rent/Bury/Buy) for my summary. All others, let’s talk:

Like Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf  (a film directors Alex and David Pastor cited as a ripe source of inspiration), Carriers takes the idea of society’s death in the wake of disaster and uses its possibilities to explore humanity. Excuse me while I cough up some pretentious tasting phlegm brought up by that last statement.

By the way, my pretentious phlegm wanted to say hi:

Continuing, our four main characters start out as standard film fodder: the jerky big brother Brian (Star Trek’s Chris Pine, hinting at some interestingly dark charisma lurking beneath a pretty boy exterior), his seemingly slutty girlfriend Bobby (Piper Perabo), the Yale-bound nice guy Danny (Lou Tayor Pucci) and a shy rich girl Kate (Emily VanCamp). In a way, they’re all a tad off-putting and nowhere near as sympathetic as Meloni and his adorably dying daughter, but you know what? They’re wiling to do what it takes to survive, so like it or not, it's their path we follow.

Like every movie about the apocalypse, Carriers abides by the rule that strangers generally aren’t friends you haven’t met. Some are racist. Some are potential rapists. All can be liars and hypocrites and none (well, at least none that make it past the early days of infection) are generous and trusting. What I think Carriers does particularly well is demonstrate just how a normal, everyday human being can become the kind of stock villain that pops up in any disaster genre.

Take, for example, the character of Kate. Early in the film, she’s presented as a rather spoiled rich girl who simply wants to reunite with her parents, uselessly playing with dead payphones and tearing up at the suggestion of hopelessness. After she watches enough of the horrors around her, Kate learns--or perhaps, has always known and gains the confidence to actually put into action--how to influence Bobby into making a decision he’s been incapable of acting on in the past. Likewise, we see the valor of Bobby’s moral superiority slowly chip away as the reality of survival sets in with each passing tragedy. Even Pine’s Brian--a stock character fully aware of his own jerk-itude--evolves and devolves in ways most 100 minute films wouldn’t even think necessary to detail.

It's almost as though Carriers takes place around the 27th day of 28 Days Later. Characters like the Hazmat wearing germophobes come across as regular civilians still unsure as to what they're willing to do in a new world. Once devout (or fish loving) Christians choose their lives over risky human compassion. Doctors euthanize children before their bodies have a chance to fight a losing battle with disease. The world has given up, but nobody is confident in exactly what that means just yet.

Carriers is far from a great film and in some ways, not even overly enjoyable. Its story is as stark as its landscape is bright, but even that cinematography style is another interesting choice for a film that could have been so formulaic in both story and execution. Most post-apocalyptic films go for graying skies and try their hardest to color every blade of grass with dreary desolation. The landscape of Carriers is strangely untouched, a choice that makes the disharmony with what's happening in its human world oddly unnerving.

High Points

The opening misdirect-introducing typical pretty people on a joyride only to reveal the true nature of their roadtrip--starts with the right kind of twist that appropriately sets us in a world filled with the folks we know facing a situation we don’t

Similarly, the choice to start Carriers in the middle of the plague’s onslaught, with no flashbacks, prologue, or newsreels bombarding us with exposition, helped to make a surprisingly dense film move briskly without any real wasted scenes 

Though some of the scene’s dialogue inside feels a little too forced, the rescue center sequence (and its even sadder aftermath) is incredibly effective due both to the strangely unnerving empty bed/plastic curtain setup followed by the subdued earnestness of Chris Meloni

Low Points

While I have no real issue with the story ending how and where it did, the choice to introduce heavy-handed narration over home video footage felt forced and cheesy in a film that was in no way either of those things for 90% of its running time.

I’m not a big fan of the ‘extreme closeup on an importantly placed object’ trick often used to foreshadow an impending story action, and Carriers is guilty of this offense way too often

Lessons Learned

During a pandemic, gasoline may be sparse, but at least bullet supplies in handguns seem to be endless

Sand is dirt. (On a related note, if I ever start a band, this is so the title of our first single)

To avoid dropping any hint about accidental blood spatter during a plague, be sure to wear only dark colors and/or keep a Tide stain remover pen inside your pocket at all times

Millworkers do not appreciate having their windows smashed by darned kids 

YOU ARE NOW LEAVING SPOILER CITY

Try to clean up after yourself before you go.

Rent/Bury/Buy

This isn’t an Idiocracy type good time or Pulse level of nightmare-inducing horror, but I highly recommend any fan of the post apocalyptic genre gives this film a rental with an open mind. It’s easy to write off as a sleek pretty-people-in-peril thriller, but Carriers succeeds at both delivering a well-paced thriller and tossing in new elements to well-worn territory in filmdom. I don't mean to oversell this as a classic or mini masterpiece, but for a crowd-pleasing eye candy flick relegated to your local video store (or, let's face it, Internet provider), Carriers has a lot to offer. Sadly, none of that is to be found on the complete lack of special featured DVD. Give it a watch, mail it back, then keep your eye out for the Brothers Pastor's next work.

How to Succeed In Sequels

More than any other film genre, horror has thrived--and sometimes shriveled--with the onslaught of sequels. From forced character crossovers to flashback riddled running times (is there even ten minutes of original content between the first round of followups to The Hills Have Eyes and Silent Night, Deadly Night?), it’s easy to mess up a sequel. But you know what? Pumpkins are in season, I'm high on candy corn, and the positivity is pumping, so let’s instead take a moment to consider some of the smart choices sequels have made in continuing a good story: 

Expanded Mythology

The true beauty of a sequel is that it can take a premise people found interesting the first go ‘round and attack it from a new angle, such as the Cenobite-heavy chambers of Hellraiser II. While it's true that many a sequel runs the risk of revealing too much (thereby negating some of the mystery that occasionally defines a first film) others seize upon the potential. Eli Roth's Hostel, for example, was a better idea than film, but his followup used the now established setup of a capitalist torture show to fully explore what audiences were drawn to in the first place. Instead of wasting time with standard protagonists, Roth gave us a briefer intro to much more likable women, then promptly delved into Elite Hunting and its own financiers. The result was a quick moving and smartly done film that found just the right note to revisit Slovakia.

Other films are less successful, but not always in a sacrilegious way. The philosophically horrific Cube series debuted as one of the most surprisingly intriguing films of the ‘90s, while a few straight-to-cable/dvd sequels attempted to take an incredible concept and try it with a different recipe. Cube 2 :Hypercube plays with the math, hints at its origin, and shoots itself with a horrid title worth of an Atari game while Cube Zero (arguably a prequel) goes behind the scenes to pose new questions. Neither is anywhere near as satisfying as Vincenzo Natali's original, which works precisely because we ultimately know nothing but what our own fears project. Still, if you watch Parts 2 & 3 as if they’re pieces of fan fiction blown up to feature length, both work on their own terms, sort of ‘what-ifs’ to a question that should never actually be answered.

Remakes In Sequels’ Designer Clothing

The world would be a far less groovy place had Sam Raimi ended the adventures of Ash in 1981. Yes, The Evil Dead is a great gooey film, but it's his first sequel that cements Bruce Campbell's status as an icon among the undead. Only quibble? It's not really a sequel if the first half hour retells the original story.

Sometimes, a filmmaker decides that directing a second film is code for second chance. In the case of The Evil Dead, this minor lapse of originality works because Raimi takes the good and makes it better with more money. We forgive the fact that Ash and Linda had already made a fateful trip to that cabin in the woods because even within the constraints of the same story, Raimi uses such a different energy that we end up with a completely different film not only from its original, but from just about every other film that had come before it.

Keep the Story Consistent

Say what you want about the juggernaut success of the Saw series, but has there ever been a 6 film franchise with such an excessively complicated spiderweb of a plot? Haters like to attack Lions Gate’s posterchild for its grisly suspenseless violence and contrived characters, but I continue to argue that this is, in many ways, one of the tightest (at least by script) franchises in the horror genre. With occasional flashbacks (and inventive ways to utilize the now deceased Jigsaw himself), each film has continued the story with something of a six degrees of separation mentality. A minor character from Part 2 returns to head Part 4, while missing characters reappear with believable, if somewhat logistically stretched explanations as to their whereabouts. I imagine the upcoming installment will have two audiences: those that have followed the five previous films and are still waiting for answers about Jigsaw's wife, the contents of a mysterious box, and the protagonists of Part III’s daughter (who’s been missing, but acknowledged in the last two films) while the other half will simply slurp their sodas through exposition and cheer at the latest rusted torture contraption. In a way, everybody wins. Except for oddly vast majority of horror fans who like to brand Saw the antichrist of filmdom. 

...or Dare To Be Different

Franchises are generally defined by their formula, whether it be pretty teenagers + machetes or redheaded dolls + profanity. Every so often, however, some series take a chance by breaking from the fold (even Chucky changed his act with married life). Though initially panned by critics and ignored by audiences, Halloween III: Season of the Witch has slowly aged to prove itself the most memorable of all those October 31st celebrating films. Admittedly, that’s not much of a feat when its competition included Michael Meyers’ worshipping cults and Tyra Banks, but still: abandoning Meyers for an evil corporation wielding head-melting dime store masks was a daring move well before its time. Likewise, the majority of Elm Street fans tend to use Part 2 as a coaster for their Hypnocil spiked Red Bull, but the sheer fact that such a random entry exists in an otherwise formulaic series is in itself somewhat notable. (Also, it’s one of the most fascinatingly homoerotic/homophobic films of all time, but that’s a discussion save for another day).

Jump Right In

Look, if we’re watching a film with 2, II, or the words “The Return” in the title, you can probably trust that we’ve been here before. Thankfully, the better sequels understand that audiences don’t need heavy exposition to get the kills rolling. Note how starting from Dawn to Land,George Romero’s Dead films never wasted time explaining the oncoming zompocalypse. Similarly, 28 Weeks Later boasts one of the most terrifyingly exciting openings in recent years by immediately thrusting us back into a nightmarish world we know all too well. 

There are plenty more notable sequel rules for continuing a franchise, so add some of your own and let the Freddy Vs. Jason style fights begin!

Take Me Down To the Nightmare City (where the zombies are mean and they sure ain't pretty)

Few sub-genres have such a vast range in quality as zombie cinema. From the satirically brilliant Dawn of the Dead and modern panorama of the apocalypse in 28 Days Later to the straight-to-not-even-good-enough-for-the-SyFy-channel vaults of homemade horror, documenting the undead is truly a toy for any filmmaker. It’s only fitting that George Romero’s black-and-white classic belongs to the world in the realm of public domain.


When it comes to shamblers, life truly is a box of chocolately brains; you really never know what you’re going to get. Hence, it was with some trepidation that I approached Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City, a 1980 entry into the Italian zombie canon. While I enjoy my share of 70s spaghetti guts with a large dollop of mozzarella, I rarely find them to actually scare me on any genuine level.


And thus, with some raised expectation and more than a little doubts, I sat down for some old school zombi action, courtesy of Mr. Lenzi's dubbed bloodfest. I was not disappointed.


Quick Plot: Journalist Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz, no visible resemblance to the Inglorious Basterd) arrives at a landing strip to interview a big shot scientist. Instead, an unidentified plane arrives and the military surrounds it with guns aimed. The doors open and a few grayish men stumble outside, followed by some messily rotted faced sprinters who quickly tear their way into the fleshy army, eating, stabbing, and shooting every human (save for the conveniently immune reporter) in their path.

What follows is a typical genre film, but with a mix of added bonuses that make it hold up with grisly glee thirty years after Nightmare City’s premiere. I don’t know that this is the first appearance of running zombies, but they make their mark like Olympians with high doses of national pride. Some massacres are committed with extra servings of cheese--like the televised aerobics attack, which features leotards, dubbed New Yawk accents, and, just because, several pairs of bare breasts. Other moments contain true suspense and enough horror to keep the audience holding their breaths.


That being said, Nightmare City is not without its flaws. Upon watching a 13 minute interview with Lenzi (the sole extra on my DVD), I realized that these “zombies”--much like the infected of 28 Days Later--are not actually supernaturally undead, but are meant to be products of a radiation leak. I may not have been paying close enough attention to get this bit the first time around, which, in hindsight, makes the very setup of the film much more interesting than the common zombie flick. There is some attempt to provide a government/military angle to the story, but it never really takes us anywhere. At the same time, there is a splattering of characters set throughout the city, few of whom earn enough of our sympathies to let us care about their fates. Then again, any film that provides a zombie priest wielding a mean altar candle gets my seal of approval.

High Points
The first attack is shocking, fast-paced, and actually scary


Kudos for utilizing a roller coaster in a unique and disturbing shot

Low Points
After hearing Lenzi’s explanation of his zombie look, the rotting roasted marshmallow look makes sense, but during the film, they just kind of seem crunchy


The whole “Oh thank God it’s you!” moment, followed by the ‘you’ being a fresh-faced zombie about the chomp his or her way through the daft human works fine the first time, but by the fifth or so repeat it gets a tad predictable


Lessons Learned
Contrary to what nearly any other film would like you to believe, climbing your way up a rope is not nearly as easy as it looks


Zombies are not fans of modern art


To avoid copying Romero-isms, use synonyms like “bullets can damage the cranium” in place of common phrases like “Shoot it man, shoot it in the head”

It is quite possible to shoot a man’s arm off and beat someone to death with a broom


Nurses are well-versed in evolutionary patterns and the consequences of entering the Age of the Robot, but also subscribe to many superstitions about vampires. And, most importantly, they’re quite talented when it comes to freshening up with the right lipstick in the middle of a citywide cannibalistic massacre


Nobody in Italy wears a bra


Rent/Bury/Buy
Although the extras are limited, Nightmare City will probably find its way into my personal DVD collection should I find it at the right price. This is not the most horrifying 70s zombie film of all time, nor is it laughably enjoyable. It’s a solid, scary, and unusual take on what quickly became a tired genre.