Review #754: 'Night of the Comet' (1984)

18 year-old Reggie (Catherine Mary Stewart), is a Valley girl working in the local movie theatre when the rest of the world are out partying, waiting for the arrival of a passing comet. Reggie has a party of her own with goofy projectionist Larry (Breaking Bad's Michael Bowen) and ends up missing the event entirely. After Larry is attacked by a zombie-like creature and dragged away, Reggie emerges into the world the next morning to find everyone vanished. All that remains are piles of clothes and red dust. She travels home to pick up her adorable sister Samantha (Kelli Maroney), and heads to a local radio station in search for fellow survivors, only to find lovable idiot Hector (Robert Beltran).

What is clearly aiming for pastiche of 1950's apocalyptic sci-fi movies, is actually an uneasy mix of many things. With the early introduction of the 'zombies', who can talk and use weapons, we are in horror territory. But this seems quickly forgotten once Hector goes to search for his mother and the girls head out for some very 80's retail therapy, even dancing around to Cyndi Lauper. Then it feels like we are in a John Hughes movie, with light humour and a cheesy soundtrack replacing the end-of-the-world atmosphere. It then switches again when the survivors are tracked down by a group of researchers who may or may not be up to any good. We are then in kiddie-friendly sci-fi mode, with men in white suits and big buttons that make science-y sounds.

Night of the Comet really isn't that bad, it just suffers from a disarming lack of follow-through that withhold's the film's potential, and shifts between genres too gleefully. The result is a film that's isn't funny enough to be labelled an out-and-out comedy, too bloodless to be called a horror, and takes too long to get to the shady scientist types that it would be misleading to name it science fiction. The performances are all decent, especially Star Trek: Voyager's Beltran and Chopping Mall's (1986) Maroney, who both would have benefited the film by having more screen-time. Geoffrey Lewis also shows up near the end as the big-bad head of the shady researchers, but it's too little, too late, and Night of the Comet is tame and messy when it should be spunky and fun.


Directed by: Thom Eberhardt
Starring: Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, Robert Beltran, Geoffrey Lewis
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie