Night of the Comet


 

Moviedrome Introduction


Film Details

Release Date: 1984

Director: Thom Eberhardt

Stars:
Catherine Mary Stewart as Regina "Reggie" Belmont
Kelli Maroney as Samantha "Sam" Belmont

Plot Summary

The story begins with Earth passing through the tail of a comet, an event that is expected to be a spectacular light show. However, the comet's passage turns disastrous. The next morning, two teenage sisters, Regina "Reggie" and Samantha "Sam" Belmont, wake up to find that the comet's radiation has either disintegrated most of the human population into dust or turned them into zombie-like creatures.

Regina, a video game-loving teenager, works at a movie theater and had spent the night in a steel-lined projection room, which saved her from the comet’s effects. Her sister Samantha survives by spending the night in a steel shed. As they wander through the deserted streets of Los Angeles, they realize the scope of the disaster.

The sisters eventually meet Hector Gomez, a truck driver who also survived by sleeping in the cab of his steel-encased truck. The trio teams up to survive in this new world, dealing with the zombies, rogue human survivors, and the dangers of isolation.

Personal History

Unseen. Unheard of. Think it was "Direct to Video" and not a genre that I would have had any interest in.

Current Review

In a word, terrible. 

There's been quite a few 1950s Sci-Fi in this series of Moviedrome. Yet a movie from the 1980s looked more dated than any of them.

Lets be positive though;

The Good: Very strong female leads - even if they do "revert to type" by going shopping when the world is ending. Or that may have been the joke. Some of the visuals of deserted American cityscapes, through filtered lenses, are interesting.

Red Filters


The Bad: More or less everything else. The storyline weak. The special effects are dire. Nothing has lasted well, with the 1980s styling - both in costumes and musically, not dating well. The biggest crimes are a lack of menace but more importantly, point. If there is a subliminal message to this, it was lost on me.

Quality

Interestingly, most of the crew came off Alex Cox's Repo Man. I wonder if this is why it made the cut?

Quirky Fact

When cheerleader Samantha Belmont (Kelli Maroney) is playing at the radio station as a disk jockey, she says that she is taking requests from "all you teenage mutant comet zombies." This was the working title of the film.

Quotes

[When her MAC-10 jams during target practice]
Samantha Belmont: See, this is the problem with these things. Daddy would have gotten us Uzis.

Sustenance

AI suggested Popcorn. Its that sort of film.

Future Inspiration

Practically a whole genre of post apocalypse films. The Omega Man links in with my Richard Matheson vibe from the Shrinking Man. Dawn of the Dead another classic that needs to be revisited.

It doesn't look like the actors or director went onto anything else of note. 


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