Night of the Comet (1984)

What a beautiful movie!

Redundant and unnecessary.

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Zombies who regularly eat teenage brains are moodier than zombies who don't.However, it'll be hard to get a hold of the adolescent minds in this sci-fi thriller.When earth passes through the tail of a comet, all spectators are turned into a flesh-eating zombie. Promiscuous teen Reggie and her cheerleader sister Sam (Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney) awake the next day unchanged. Armed with an Uzi they blast their way through the undead to reach a group of scientists who want to dissect the sisters to find a cure.Considered to be the inspiration behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as a main contributor to the fledgling horror-comedy sub-genre, this 1984 cult classic was ahead of its time not only in terms of its jocular tone, but also in casting two strong female leads as the survivors.Unfortunately, sexist zombies are going to have a tough choice this election. Yellow Light vidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

Fantastic 80's apocalypse film. Its not a sci-fi that appears to have deeper levels, but is a great package of a film which makes it very remember-able. The characters and actors are appealing and believable. The atmosphere via filming, filters, background music is excellent and gives a great feeling of place, desolateness and the films own personality. Also the two main characters go and do exactly what any sane human would do in this situation too.(no spoilers) This film probably has many of the same ingredients that made Dawn of the Dead so good but with a more comedic side.A fantastic Saturday night film and easy entertainment.(its not too scary or gory although effective) One of my all-time favorites. Its a 10/10 for what it is.As for much of the films scenes and imagery, the films last scene and bad joke will for some reason stick in your mind.

Night of the Comet is a cult science fiction film with elements of horror and comedy. It is low budget film set in Los Angeles with a very 1980s synth soundtrack.The plot is inspired by the novel The Day of the Triffids and the film Dawn of the Dead. Its female protagonists in turn was an inspiration for Buffy The Vampire Slayer.A comet approaching the earth causes an extinction level catastrophe. People are turned to dust and those who were only partially exposed to the comet's rays are slowly zombified.Eighteen year old Reg (Catherine Mary Stewart) and her younger sister Samantha (Kelli Maroney) survived as they were separately in a steel reinforced room. They head for a radio station that is still transmitting and come across Hector Gomez (Robert Beltran) another survivor drawn to the radio station.The girls later go off to a mall and encounter zombie stock boys who try to shoot them. They are later rescued by a group of scientists who have a secret plan to use their blood and develop a serum as the scientists themselves became infected.The film has a lot of time lapse photography and use of coloured filters to make the sky look pink and give it a strange effect. The film loses focus too many times as it becomes slow and boring. If it was a homage to the 1950s science fiction B films then it should had been more tighter and sharper.Like a lot of similar genre film of the mid 1980s, the film has a post apocalyptic punk setting. Unusually the film has a pair of kick ass females as heroines who are also easy on the eye. Proof that strong women characters are not a recent invention. One in the eye for those who rant on film forums on the internet about the rise of Femi-Nazis and the pussification of males in movies or other such nonsense.The film has several cult actors such as Mary Woronov and Chris Pederson. It also features the late Geoffrey Lewis who was one of the best supporting actors around.

I saw Night Of The Comet way back in 1985, on a bad Betamax copy. I remember liking it back then. Now I got my hands on the newly released Bluray edition and well, the movie has dated a bit. Sure, Night Of The Comet was has a bit of tongue in cheek and it kind of never takes itself too seriously, but even at that, it does contain some truly creepy moments. The movie deals with a comet passing near Earth's orbit and scientists predicting a dazzling spectacle of lights and a meteor shower. SInce it's a once in a lifetime event, most of the residents in L.A. gather outside the streets to catch a perfect view of this comet passing by. It later appears that all that were exposed to the comet's radiation disintegrate, turning humans into dusty red clay. Only two girls seem to survive, Regina and Sammantha, both of them were miraculously hidden from the radiation. When they become aware that everybody around them is dead, they desperately try to communicate with other possible survivors. The empty streets of L.A., the automatic gardening devices, clocks, street lights, etc., seem to function normally, giving us a glimpse that machines can go on their own without humans. It is these scenes that I found the creepiest, reminding me of movies like The Omegan Man and 28 Days Later, which I think borrowed heavily from this picture.The girls then find and befriend a truck driver and for a moment it appears that they are the only survivors. One thing that is never fully explained is that, some of the people that didn't die, turned into Zombies. Unlike the Zombies in George Romero films (slow and dumb) or in 28 Days Later (fast and furious), these zombies actually speak and think. It is never specified why they didn't disintegrate and why they necessarily have to turn into zombies. To make matters worse, a team of scientists also survive, but they too have been exposed to the comet and need contaminated free survivors in order to make a serum that can save them. Maybe if the movie had a more serious tone (like those scenes of empty LA, that are truly creepy)it would've been a far more interesting movie, yet Night Of The Comet manages to entertain. Those of us who grew up during the 80's will surely find the soundtrack of electronic and new wave music very appealing (yet it also severely dates the movie).I enjoyed Night Of The Comet, but I'll be the first to admit it's not Oscar material.