Night of the CometIf a comet is orbiting dangerously close to the earth, it's probably a good idea to hide out in a steel-lined bunker--just to be safe. Night of the Comet is a campy sci-fi movie about arcade game enthusiast and part-time movie theater usher, Regina "Reggie" Belmont (Catherine Mary Stewart), and her cheerleader sister, Sam (Kelli Maroney), who discover that after a mysterious comet passes over the Earth, that most of the people on Earth have been reduced to a reddish dust. (A poster for the Gable-Harlow movie, Red Dust, where she works plays off of this.) Reggie and Sam struggle to cope after the apocalypse, where they have the whole of Los Angeles at their disposal.
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Hearkening back to 1950s era sci-fi classics--like It Came from Outer Space or The Blob--Night of the Comet opens with a narrator describing the ominous comet as a "visitor" that last appeared around sixty-five million years ago, when dinosaurs "vanished" from the Earth. Within the first ten minutes, what happened to them happens to almost all of the human race. The premise of a few lone survivors in a world devoid of society has been popular in sci-fi, from early classics like The Last Man on Earth (1964) and The Omega Man, to subsequent films, including I Am Legend and Bokeh. Night of the Comet also explores the breakdown of civilization resulting from a blood disease that afflicts those who only had cursory exposure to the comet's radiation, which is slowly turning them into ghoulish, cannibalistic zombies, who become aggressive and are sensitive to light. Reggie runs into one of the afflicted after her sleazy boyfriend, Larry (Michael Bowen), is ambushed outside the steel-lined projection room where they spent the night before. When Reggie and Sam hear a radio broadcast after the event, they visit the station--which looks more like a night club, decked out in vivid neon--in the hopes of finding someone still alive. Although the broadcast turns out to be prerecorded, they instead meet the equally shaken trucker, Hector (Robert Beltran). Despite some initial bickering, Reggie and Hector form a bond; this makes Sam jealous, but she accepts that squabbling over a boy pales in light of recent events. Even though the world has ended, Sam tries to cling to the vestiges of her normal life, like a crush she had on a transfer student, sharing her tearful thoughts to Reggie while they sit atop an abandoned police cruiser. When Hector goes back to San Diego to confirm his suspicions that his family did not survive the radiation, he adjusts some fallen Christmas lights in an automatic response suggesting that he's done it a hundred times before. Little moments like these are the real heart of Night of the Comet.
When the despair of living under the oppressive red sky becomes too much for Reggie, Sam, and Hector, they do what any young adults raised in a consumer culture would--they go shopping. Night of the Comet is filled with a predominance of Eighties pop music, and their spree is a showcase for it. Reggie and Sam prance through clothing stores, decked out in the height of fashion, with their MAC-10 submachine guns slung over their shoulders like purses, while Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" is pumping on the boom box. The girls' familiarity with firearms comes from being "military brats", with their father instructing them at a young age. Sam even teases Reggie when her machine pistol jams that "daddy would have gotten us Uzis", and Reggie warns a would-be cannibal zombie that she knows self-defense, and then demonstrates it. Despite their valley girl appearance, Reggie and Sam are not wilting flowers but competent survivors, capable of defending themselves against creeps like the erstwhile stock boys turned killers at the mall. Reggie is a bit of a "nerd" herself, obsessed with an arcade game (Tempest) that she plays when she should be working at the theater, becoming agitated when she finds that someone has placed sixth on her heretofore exclusive scoreboard. She even corrects Larry when he comments that "Superman can't see through steel"--an unlikely bit of trivia were Reggie merely a fashion-obsessed teenybopper. Reggie and Sam are less prepared for the mysterious para-military science division that has been monitoring the broadcasts they make from the radio station. They breach the city to abduct any healthy survivors to use in their desperate attempts to cure the degenerative symptoms following exposure to the radiation. Unfortunately, the majority of the group are more concerned with their own survival, even if that means turning the survivors into brain dead generators of untainted blood to stave off the necrotic effects of the sickness. Combining these elements with their underground lair makes them fundamentally into vampires.
Is post-comet life better for Reggie and Sam? Not really; it's true that they don't have to endure their malicious and abusive stepmother, Doris (Sharon Farrell), but even that would have been preferable to waking up one morning to find everyone you loved had been reduced to powder. Night of the Comet doesn't obsess on the psychological impact of the catastrophe, and even indulges in some light-hearted--and even silly--scenes that have made the film a cult classic, like Reggie and Sam's fashionable shootout in the mall with Willy (Ivan E. Roth) and his psychotic goons. Other darkly comic moments include when two morally vacant technicians at the bunker are trying to give nitrous oxide to a couple of child survivors--telling them that they'll go see Santa Claus--and have the gas forced on themselves with a hand-written sign citing that they've "gone to see Santa". Night of the Comet was made after the success of low-budget gems like Repo Man, and it embraces a lot of the tonal idiosyncrasies found in its contemporaries; consider how often Hector likes to putting on costumes--Santa Claus in one scene, a redneck cowboy in another. (Coincidentally, "cult star" Mary Woronov plays Audrey White, a scientist resigned to her fate, who expresses the minority opinion about leaving the survivors alone; both Woronov and Beltran also starred in the cult classic, Eating Raoul.) The dialogue is deliberately off-kilter and even a bit goofy by design, like when Hector shares how he saw one of the zombies eating someone's pet, and Sam vapidly asks, "who'd want to eat a live cat?" The ubiquitous Eighties aesthetic in Night of the Comet makes the film a bit of a time capsule--the kind of cheesy popcorn-munching gem that is perfect midnight movie fare. And if a real comet comes close to obliterating life as we know it, maybe a couple of teenagers "making it" in the projection room while this film is playing at the theater will survive us all.
Recommended for: Fans of post-apocalyptic sci-fi flicks, but one that merges the bleak annihilation of civilization as we know it with the peppy enthusiasm of Eighties-era California valley girls. Audiences looking for scientific verisimilitude should watch something other than Night of the Comet; but audiences seeking a campy cult classic will be entertained with the "late movie" vibe pulsing through its veins.
When the despair of living under the oppressive red sky becomes too much for Reggie, Sam, and Hector, they do what any young adults raised in a consumer culture would--they go shopping. Night of the Comet is filled with a predominance of Eighties pop music, and their spree is a showcase for it. Reggie and Sam prance through clothing stores, decked out in the height of fashion, with their MAC-10 submachine guns slung over their shoulders like purses, while Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" is pumping on the boom box. The girls' familiarity with firearms comes from being "military brats", with their father instructing them at a young age. Sam even teases Reggie when her machine pistol jams that "daddy would have gotten us Uzis", and Reggie warns a would-be cannibal zombie that she knows self-defense, and then demonstrates it. Despite their valley girl appearance, Reggie and Sam are not wilting flowers but competent survivors, capable of defending themselves against creeps like the erstwhile stock boys turned killers at the mall. Reggie is a bit of a "nerd" herself, obsessed with an arcade game (Tempest) that she plays when she should be working at the theater, becoming agitated when she finds that someone has placed sixth on her heretofore exclusive scoreboard. She even corrects Larry when he comments that "Superman can't see through steel"--an unlikely bit of trivia were Reggie merely a fashion-obsessed teenybopper. Reggie and Sam are less prepared for the mysterious para-military science division that has been monitoring the broadcasts they make from the radio station. They breach the city to abduct any healthy survivors to use in their desperate attempts to cure the degenerative symptoms following exposure to the radiation. Unfortunately, the majority of the group are more concerned with their own survival, even if that means turning the survivors into brain dead generators of untainted blood to stave off the necrotic effects of the sickness. Combining these elements with their underground lair makes them fundamentally into vampires.
Is post-comet life better for Reggie and Sam? Not really; it's true that they don't have to endure their malicious and abusive stepmother, Doris (Sharon Farrell), but even that would have been preferable to waking up one morning to find everyone you loved had been reduced to powder. Night of the Comet doesn't obsess on the psychological impact of the catastrophe, and even indulges in some light-hearted--and even silly--scenes that have made the film a cult classic, like Reggie and Sam's fashionable shootout in the mall with Willy (Ivan E. Roth) and his psychotic goons. Other darkly comic moments include when two morally vacant technicians at the bunker are trying to give nitrous oxide to a couple of child survivors--telling them that they'll go see Santa Claus--and have the gas forced on themselves with a hand-written sign citing that they've "gone to see Santa". Night of the Comet was made after the success of low-budget gems like Repo Man, and it embraces a lot of the tonal idiosyncrasies found in its contemporaries; consider how often Hector likes to putting on costumes--Santa Claus in one scene, a redneck cowboy in another. (Coincidentally, "cult star" Mary Woronov plays Audrey White, a scientist resigned to her fate, who expresses the minority opinion about leaving the survivors alone; both Woronov and Beltran also starred in the cult classic, Eating Raoul.) The dialogue is deliberately off-kilter and even a bit goofy by design, like when Hector shares how he saw one of the zombies eating someone's pet, and Sam vapidly asks, "who'd want to eat a live cat?" The ubiquitous Eighties aesthetic in Night of the Comet makes the film a bit of a time capsule--the kind of cheesy popcorn-munching gem that is perfect midnight movie fare. And if a real comet comes close to obliterating life as we know it, maybe a couple of teenagers "making it" in the projection room while this film is playing at the theater will survive us all.
Recommended for: Fans of post-apocalyptic sci-fi flicks, but one that merges the bleak annihilation of civilization as we know it with the peppy enthusiasm of Eighties-era California valley girls. Audiences looking for scientific verisimilitude should watch something other than Night of the Comet; but audiences seeking a campy cult classic will be entertained with the "late movie" vibe pulsing through its veins.