Night of the Comet (1984) Atlantic/Sci-Fi-Comedy-Horror RT: 95 minutes Rated PG-13 (violence, language, sexual references, teen drinking) Director: Thom Eberhardt Screenplay: Thom Eberhardt Music: David Richard Campbell Cinematography: Arthur Albert Release date: November 16, 1984 (US) Cast: Robert Beltran, Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, Sharon Farrell, Mary Woronov, Geoffrey Lewis, Michael Bowen, Janice Kawaye, Chance Boyer, Peter Fox, John Achorn, Lissa Layng, Ivan E. Roth, Dick Rude, Chris Pedersen, Stanley Brock. Box Office: $14.4M (US)
Rating: ****
Who knew, back in the unenlightened times of 1984, that the sci-fi comedy Night of the Comet would someday be a cult favorite? I did! Well, I had a hunch it would find its audience at some point. While it turned a sweet profit at the box office ($14.4M on a $700K budget), it wasn’t exactly the must-see movie of the fall season. It gained a lot of momentum once it hit video and cable TV. By that time, I was already a fan of this humorous salute to B-movies. What’s not to love? It has two smoking hot Valley girls kicking butt in an end-of-humanity scenario, a wicked stepmother, zombies, a mad scientist and his minions, cheap special effects, a rockin’ soundtrack (80s style!) and a jocular tongue-in-cheek attitude. In the vernacular of 80s teens, it’s AWESOME!
The world is celebrating the arrival of a comet, one that hasn’t been seen for roughly 65 million years, around the time the dinosaurs disappeared. The morning after it passes, a reddish haze covers the sky and humanity is all but extinct save for a few survivors. Among them are sisters Regina (Stewart, The Last Starfighter) and Sam (Maroney, Chopping Mall), two girls from the Valley who are anything but helpless. Their father, a military career man, taught them everything they need to know about fighting and guns. He’s currently away fighting a war in some Latin-American country leaving his shrewish wife (Farrell, It’s Alive) free to screw around with a neighbor. That is, until fate intervenes and disintegrates them both.
ANYWAY, the girls are understandably freaked by how empty the streets of L.A. are not to mention the piles of red dust that used to be other people. Then there are the zombies, the unlucky folks affected by the comet who didn’t die right away. Regina encounters the one that killed her projectionist boyfriend (Bowen, Valley Girl) outside the movie theater where she worked. She makes short work of him and takes off on her late bf’s motorcycle. She races home to find Sam alive and unaware of what happened. She’s on her way to cheerleading practice when her big sister lays the bad news on her. They head off to a local radio station after hearing the DJ doing his morning show. It’s there they meet Hector (Beltran, Eating Raoul), a truck driver on his way to San Diego when disaster struck. He becomes an ally and a minor source of friction between the sisters. Sam is miffed at Regina for stealing the last man on earth. What, they never heard of sharing? Oh, that’s right, kinky sex stuff doesn’t happen in a PG-13 world.
Zombies aren’t the only problem in post-apocalyptic SoCal. When Sam goes on the air to announce things like the permanent cancellation of final exams and the lowering of the legal drinking age to 10 (“but you will need ID, let’s be real”), she’s heard by a group of scientists in a secret underground installation in the desert. Led by Dr. Carter (Lewis, Any Which Way You Can), they’re looking for a cure for exposure to the comet’s deadly effects after inadvertently being exposed themselves. This entails harvesting the blood of survivors like the two pajama-clad children, Brian (Boyer, Arachnophobia) and Sarah (Kawaye), brought to the facility. Not everybody’s on board with Carter’s plan. One of his people, disillusioned scientist Audrey (Woronov, Eating Raoul), helps initiate a plan to stop him.
Written and directed by Thom Eberhardt (Sole Survivor), Night of the Comet is great fun from start to finish. Think of it is as a gender-switch take on The Last Man on Earth fuelled by a heavy dose of girl power. Only these girls aren’t your typical bubble-headed Valley girls. Sure, they love a good shopping spree as much as the next girl, but not without their trusty Uzis close at hand. They come in handy when confronted with evil stock boys whose methods of dealing with potential shoplifters are rather severe. Aside from that, bopping around to a cover of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and trying on different outfits is a nice distraction from end of the world woes.
I just LOVE the cast of Night of the Comet. It’s great to see B-movie vets like Farrell and Woronov as well as familiar faces like Lewis and Stanley Brock (Love at First Bite) as the theater manager. The two female leads are excellent. Stewart positively exudes bad assery with her take-no-crap attitude and physical skills. Maroney imbues her character with just the right amount of teenage ditziness. She’s every bit an 80s-era teen girl, a little bit of an airhead but articulate and clever when it counts. Plus, she’s nimble and knows her way around an automatic weapon. BTW, I love her cheerleader uniform. Beltran makes a good hero; he’s macho but not condescending towards the girls. He also knows enough to run like hell when chased by a zombie child. Bowen, in a too-small role, is cool as the projectionist who meets his end over concern for the safe return a bootleg print of It Came from Outer Space (in 3D!). Farrell is perfect as the bitchy stepmom with a great right hook.
Night of the Comet is low budget all the way and that’s as it should be. There’s no need to spend millions of dollars in order to create a masterpiece, a term I use loosely. The makers brought it in for under $1M and did a hell of a job with it. I love the cheesy effects and makeup. Same goes for the sight of a near-vacant major American city. Usually, I cringe at end of the world movies, but Night of the Comet makes it sound almost fun. It’s actually the flip side of The Terminator which depicted a bleak, nightmarish vision of the world post-apocalypse. What a double feature that would make, right?
I couldn’t put into words why I loved Night of the Comet at the time of its release. I blame this on not knowing the right people as a teen. In those pre-Internet days, I didn’t know anybody as obsessed with movies as I was (and still am). I just knew it had a special quality that would someday be appreciated. I don’t mean to boast, but I pride myself on my foresight regarding cinema. Okay, I admit getting Titanic wrong (I really thought it would bomb), but I know a cult movie when I see one. Night of the Comet is one of the coolest. Not only does it have a strong following, it was also heavily influential in the creation of a certain vampire slayer named Buffy. If that’s not cool, I don’t know what is.
P.S. Since Night of the Comet is set around Christmas, I regard it as a Christmas movie.
