The Day of the Triffids

His eyes bandaged after a hospital operation Bill Masen misses the solar showers which blind much of the world's population and free the Triffids, carnivorous stinging plants used as a fuel source, giving them mobility. On the panic-stricken streets of London he rescues Jo Playdon, a radio presenter who missed the showers when she was in an underground crash, from being used as a human guide dog and they search for her father, only to find Triffids have killed him. Following an emergency radio broadcast with Jo in which Bill spells out the danger of the Triffids, they travel to find Dennis, Bill's dad, and,like his son, a Triffid expert.Years earlier,Bill's mother was killed by a Triffid when she and her husband were researching the creatures in Africa.A meeting with a skeleton government yields nothing but the couple fall in with the altruistic military man Coker, who is rounding up survivors to combat the Triffids. His group includes self-seeking Torrence, who wants to become leader and, having seen Bill and Coker survive a Triffid attack, he tells Jo they are both dead, moving her and others to London, his 'capital'.

Bill and Coker take sanctuary at an abbey, whose abbess says she wants to set up a haven for blind and sighted refugees. However Bill discovers she is sacrificing old and weak people to the Triffids to keep them at bay. He travels to see his father, collecting two gun-toting little girls on the way. Jo, having realised that Torrence lied to her about Bill's death, makes a broadcast warning people about him before escaping from London and also arriving at Dennis's. Father and son aim to create a mutant Triffid which will sterilise the existing ones when it mates with them but Dennis is stung whilst experimenting and dies. An aeroplane flies overhead distributing leaflets to say that Coker has established a Triffid-free community on the Isle of Wight in an effort to rebuild society and Bill and Jo and the girls intend to go there. First, however, they must overcome not only the menacing Triffids outside the house but Torrence and his gunmen, who show up threatening to kill the girls if Bill does not get rid of the Triffids. An African mask and a recording of Triffid cries are all Bill has to save himself and his companions. Will he succeed?