Night of the Comet (1984)

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Written and Directed by Thom Eberhardt

starring
Catharine Mary Stewart
Kelli Maroney
Sharon Farrell
Mary Waronov
Geoffrey Lewis
Michael Bowen

If you've ever seen any film such as The Day After, The Stand, Armageddon, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, or one of their hundreds of counterparts, the end of the world would seem to be pretty serious business for us to have to deal with it sometime down the road. Film directors and writers one and all want us to believe it's all doom and gloom what with asteroids zooming around haphazardly in space, aliens needing to ravage us and the planet, global warming screwing up the weather or some deadly virus escaping some government lab infecting mankind with a super flu. But writer and director Thom Eberhardt is one person who doesn't find the end of mankind as we know it to be a totally dreary prospect, and in fact finds a bit of humor in the situation by way of telling the story of two of the possible survivors, teenagers Reggie Belmont (Catherine Mary Stewart) and her sister Sam (Kelli Maroney).

Somewhere out there in the final frontier where no man has gone before is a comet zipping around with nothing better to do but to pay all of us here on earth a quick friendly visit. No, it doesn't exactly have earth's name on it, but it does want to take a cue from Tom Cruise in Top Gun and do a major fly by just so it can get up close and personal with us. Of course since the inhabitants of earth think ever situation is just another reason to party, we decide to have one big planet wide comet festival just to welcome it into our solar system and to greet it with one huge worldwide "Howdy". There are comet tee shirts, comet hats, people have comet barbecues, and everything is just one big gigantic comet celebration.

One of these comet parties in Suburbia, USA is being hosted by Doris Belmont (Sharon Farrell), wicked step monster to Reggie and Sam. Reggie and Sam's father is off doing army duty, and it's left up to Doris to keep the two girls safe and out of trouble. In the case of Doris, that means being a first class bitch to the girls while screwing the next door neighbor on the side.

On the night of the big comet party, Reggie is pulling her shift at a local movie theater which means spending most of her time playing the video game Tempest so that her initials can occupy all of the top ten scores. When her boyfriend Larry (Michael Bowen), who works at the theater as a projectionist, asks her to spend the night in the projection booth with him, it is left up to Sam to help Doris serve chips and dips at her party.

During an argument, Doris hits Sam with a right hook. Furious, Sam leaves Doris to serve her own chips and dip when she isn't resting her hand on Chuck's ass. Eventually the comet does pass overhead, and being the grateful kind of comet that knows how to treat its host, it leaves us all a nice comet welcoming gift of its own by turning the vast majority of the human population into orange pixie dust.

Of course, if you happen to be one of the very lucky few, like Reggie and Sam, you may have survived. It turns out if you were in a dwelling of some sort completely encased by steel, then you also got to wake up the next morning by the the dawn's early light in as good of a shape as you always were, minus a few friends, relatives and acquaintances of course. Reggie, having spent the night in the theater projection room which just happens to be steel lined, does survive. Boyfriend Larry survives as well of course, but it turns out to be only a temporary reprieve for that putz.

Sam, who found herself somehow spending the night in a steel shed survives as well. Yeah, I know. What are the odds?

However, if you were only partially protected by a steel enclosure, then you only get to survive temporarily as you turn into a cannibalistic zombie. How fast this switcheroo happens depends on how much leakage of comet entrails that your enclosure allowed.

Then there are those scientists led by Audrey (Mary Waronov) and Carter (Geoffrey Lewis) who were scientifically aware of the probably danger but instead of warning us to momentarily hop into our Kenmore refrigerators, they built themselves a huge enclosure of their own out in the desert to protect only themselves. So not only are they extremely selfish scientists, they are also straight out of the Fred MacMurray School of Absent Minded Professors because although I'm sure they wear their seat belts and lock their car doors, they somehow forget to close the vents on their Comet Proof Bomb Shelter. Thus, unless they find a cure they will soon be walking around looking for their next meal. The problem is, the only way they might be able to develop a cure is to round up some of the few remaining humans and pump their blood out of them.

If it all sounds kind of goofy and wacky it certainly is all of that. Early in the film, you may have a bit of trouble buying into the proceedings but you'll eventually be seduced by the perkiness and charm of Stuart and Mulroney, the snappy dialog that inhabits Eberhardt's script, and the over all absurdness of it all.

For instance, when Reggie returns with an arsenal to fight off zombies, Reggie complains that, `Dad would have gotten us Uzis'. And what are two teenage girls to do when faced with the apocalypse?

Samantha plays D.J. on the only radio station:

"This is Samantha Belmont, one third owner of the Greater Los Angeles Basin. Most of you guys had finals this week. Later. They're History. They're cancelled.

The drinking age is now 10, but you will need ID. Let's be real.

I'll be taking requests from all you teenage comet zombies on the hotline."

They also meet up with and vie for the affections of truckdriver Hector (Robert Beltran) who may or may not be the only eligible bachelor in town.

They gather up some machine guns and practice their craft on the nearest parked cars, lamenting the fact that they don't have uzi's.

They later lift their spirits by going shopping at the mall to the music of Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Well, isn't that what everybody would do considering the situation? It is at the mall where the gals also meet up with the new owners, who are just about on the edge of zombieism.

The special effects and zombie makeup aren't much to speak of but they they were never meant to be. The film is obviously meant to be paying homage to similar fables that once inhabited the drive-ins and theaters in the fifties and early sixties. And besides, it's the sharp script by Eberhardt and the wonderfully winning and energetic performances by Mary Catherine Stewart and Kelli Maroney that carry the day here.

It's obvious that Eberhardt was working from a somewhat miniscule budget, and although there are a few scary moments when Zombies pop out of nowhere, it's the whole premise of two Valley Girls trying to survive in a desolate Los Angels while being chase around by monsters and evil scientists that will win you over. It's obvious from the narration in the opening moments that this is a B movie, but Eberhardt keeps things on track by never taking himself seriously or asking us to either.

Night of the Comet is currently available on DVD from MGM after having been out of print for ages so snatch it up while you can for less than 10 bucks. It has also popped up in a glorious HD version on MGM-HD so check the listings there as well.

It takes an offbeat sense of humor to make a film like Night of the Comet and have it succeed as well as it does. It takes a quirky sense of humor for someone watching it to appreciate the film for what it is: a cheesy plot-hole ridden B movie, with a lot of odd humor and with two lead actresses that are good enough to take us along for the ride. I bought into all of it, hook, line, sinker, cheap special effects and everything else that went with it. And if I can buy into all this I have no choice but to give you my grade which for Night of the Comet is a B. Now excuse me for a second while I go check out the vents on my comet shelter.