Night of the Comet Touches on Many of the Biggest 80s Stereotypes.
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Night of the Comet has big hair, free love, evil step mothers and pep-rallies. Oh, and there are zombies too – bitchin!
Written by BHM Editor Don Sumner
March 15, 2007
Release: 1984
Written and Directed by: Thom Eberhardt
Starring:
Robert Beltran as Hector
Catherine Mary Stewart as Regina
Kelli Maroney as Samantha
Sharon Farrell as Doris
I am a child of the 80s. To this day I love the music and the huge hair styles. Not such a fan of the clothes from the period, but the fond nostalgia remains. Imagine my glee, then, when I discovered Night of the Comet in the horror section of the local Best Buy.
In the opening scene we meet Regina (Catherine Mary Stewart), a high school senior that works in the local movie theater. I think that every 80s chick worked in a movie theater, and Regina is no exception. She is also the queen of the big 80s hair, has that 80s sass and loves the insanely simple shoot-um-up video games of the era. And she is a slut.
Regina’s slutty nature is her saving grace in Night of the Comet. The whole world will be partying in the streets on this particular night because an ancient comet will pass close enough to the earth to create the most spectacular light show ever seen. Regina’s perky sister Samantha (Kelli Maroney) is home with evil stepmother Doris (Sharon Farrell, who looked a lot like Cloris Leachman) hosting a street party to welcome the skyward delight, and nearly every other inhabitant of the planet earth will be joining them in similar block parties in suburbs world-wide…but Regina chose to “make it” with the theater film guy and stay inside and miss it all. Good thing for her.
The astral revelers had no idea that the gasses from the passing comet, when coming in contact with living flesh, immediately extract all of the water from the body and leave nothing but a pile of brown calcium dust. All that is left of anybody in the comet’s wake is their hip 80s outfits with power sprinkled around them. Bad trip.
Our heroic tramp Regina is spared the powdery fate because her film-room love nest is lined with steel, the one element that affords protection from the ferocious fumes. Sister Samantha is also spared because she slept in the steel shed out back to escape the drunken Doris. There is a third survivor also, a truck driver named Hector (Robert Beltran of Star Trek: Voyager fame) who evaded disintegration because he was “making it” with some trollop in his steel truck trailer.
And the zombies! It seems that some of the comet’s victims weren’t fully exposed to the point of becoming dust, but only partially exposed resulting in their becoming white-eyed zombie-like freaks. The freak-sightings are few and far between, and they aren’t really that scary…but it’s always good to have a zombie-like creature in any movie as far as I’m concerned.
There are a lot of other things in Night of the Comet including trips to the shopping mall, conflicts with zombie-commandos, mad government scientists who hid in fallout shelters during the comet passing and an 80s-hits radio station playing never-ending pre-taped programming.
Night of the Comet is over-the-top cheesy, but that’s OK. Nothing is taken seriously and the entire movie is offered in good fun. Night of the Comet is not scary and doesn’t do a very good job with zombies or gore, but still I had a great time through the entire film.
Set your expectations low and nostalgia high and Night of the Comet will deliver in abundance. Be sure and take heed of the valuable moral of the story in Night of the Comets: Recreational sex can save you from a powdery demise. Questions or comments about Night of the Comet? Contact us!
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