Some time ago, I posted about the John Wyndham novel, The Day of the Triffids. In playing on the loss of humanity’s primary sense of sight, the story creates a truly eerie scenario in which people are harvested by plants. Not just any plants, but alien plants! Of course, such an idea demanded a movie rendition. The film was released the year I was born, but I only just got around to watching it. Compared to the psychologically thrilling novel, the movie doesn’t ever reach the intended level of terror. Nevertheless, religion, as usual, plays a role in the movie. As Bill Masen, the protagonist, makes his way from London to Paris, attempting to find other people who retain their sight after a devastating meteor shower blinded most of the world, he comes upon a mansion where the wealthy owners are caring for the disabled. (Hard to imagine that these days, but it was the 60’s, and idealism was kicking in.) While discussing their rather hopeless options, Bill suggests there is little reason for optimism. His new-found love interest, Christine, says “We must keep faith,” to which Bill replies, “It’s going to take more than that to get through this.”

Indeed, God is no help against the triffids. These intelligent, moving plants are soon everywhere, consuming humans and intent on taking over the planet. Bill and Christine, along with their adopted daughter Susan, make their way to Spain in hope of finding a military solution. They stop at a mission, topped with a cross and inhabited with a helplessly blind, and expecting, couple. The message is clear—there is no god to help those left to their own devices. Even those who live in god’s real estate have been abandoned. Those who survive are those who help themselves. Eventually our hapless heroes are rescued by the navy and a submarine moves them safely away from triffid-infested Europe. Then, in the final scene, our blended family is seen walking into a church while a voiceover declares that the triffids did not defeat humanity after all, and “Mankind survived and once again have reason to give thanks.”

Exegeting this film, however, leads to some uncomfortable conclusions. Those who had no divine aid give thanks to an impotent deity after it is all over. The solution for destroying triffids—salt water (you might want to store that away for future use)—is discovered by scientists and is applied at their personal peril. Even the heavenly-based origin of the menace has divine overtones: colorful portents in the sky are the provenance of God. In 1962 science had not yet even reached the moon. The default fallback, based on decades of evangelical sculpting of culture, is to give thanks to the Lord, despite the devastation. Indeed, a new Garden of Eden might be said to have resulted from the triffid assault. In this garden parasitic plants teach humans to give thanks, but the vast majority of humanity remains blind.