A comet is about to pass very close to Earth. Scientists reassure everybody that there is no danger. It just will be a spectacular light show.
Regina (Catherine Mary Stewart) misses the show. She’s in the projection booth of an old movie theatre having sex with her boyfriend. Well he’s not exactly her boyfriend. They’re not going steady.
The projection both just happens to have steel walls. That’s important.
The next morning everybody is dead. Everybody in LA. Maybe everybody in the world. Well, almost everybody. By a coincidence Regina’s sister Samantha (Kelli Maroney) spent the night behind steel walls.
And Hector (Robert Beltran) spent the night in the back of his truck with some chick he’d picked up. It seems like anybody who was safely behind steel barriers of some sort has survived. Which means that everybody is dead except for a tiny handful of people.
They run into Hector at the radio station. That’s important, because that’s how the scientists find out about them.
There are also the zombies. There aren’t many of them. But they’re mean and you don’t always recognise them as zombies at first.
And there are those scientists. They’re holed up in some top-secret laboratory out in the desert. Since they’re scientists and they’re part of a secret research facility we assume they’re evil. They might not be, but it’s highly likely. Maybe they will rescue the two girls. Maybe.
The romantic comedy Valley Girl had been a huge hit in 1983. Writer-director Thom Eberhardt sold the producers of Valley Girl on Night of the Comet by pitching it to them as Valley Girls at the End of the World. Post-apocalyptic sci-fi, but with valley girls.
What makes Night of the Comet oddly appealing is that you expect it to become silly and goofy and it is, but only up to a point. It’s a bit darker than you think it’s going to be. It seems like it’s going to become a black comedy, but it’s more an absurdist comedy. The tone is all over the place but its unpredictability works in its favour.
As a post-apocalyptic nightmare world it’s just desolate and empty rather than terrifying and horrific. But the desolation and emptiness are effective.
Regina does have one big thing going for her. Her dad is a Special Forces officer. Regina can handle a submachine-gun with the same skill as her favourite arcade game. And her dad has taught her that if you have to use a gun, shoot to kill. Regina is more than a match for the average zombie. And kid sister Samantha is a pretty cool customer as well.
Our trio of survivors has no idea what is going on. They know that somehow the comet killed everybody but they don’t know the truth about the zombies and even when they encounter the scientists they don’t know what that desert laboratory is all about. But they are 80s teenagers and they’re not inclined to be overly trusting. And they’ve seen horror movies. They know you don’t take chances with zombies. And they know that scientists and government people are not always the good guys.
The scenes of deserted LA are beautifully and atmospherically shot. The desolation is achieved with commendable subtlety. The slightly red skies are a nice touch. You don’t need a huge budget to make a post-apocalyptic. You just have to know what you’re doing.
The two lead actresses are wonderful. They play off each other beautifully and they’re sassy without being annoying. This is not a movie that offers non-stop mayhem. It’s more a bitter-sweet look at real people trying to deal with the end of the world. It doesn’t need gore because we really care about these people. We really really want them to make it.
This is a much better movie than it has any right to be. It manages to warmhearted and cynical at the same time. Highly recommended.
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