“This is no time for an attitude problem.”
So, I’m looking through my Neglected Cinema list on a Saturday night, wondering what movie I could check out for this week’s installment. What was I in the mood for? A drama? A comedy? Or maybe a tongue-in-cheek comedy about the end of the world? That’s it!
Night of the Comet it is!
If you’ve never seen Night of the Comet, you are in for a treat… that is, if you like cult movies that have a paper-thin plot and a premise as ludicrous as they come.
Catherine Mary Stewart plays Regina, an obsessive compulsive movie usher who plays a mean game of Tempest (and when things hit the fan, is quite handy with a submachine gun). When a comet passes by the Earth at Christmas time and turns everyone watching it into dust, she and her surviving sister Sam (played by Kelly Maroney) figure out what has happened, and then they do the obvious thing… They go shopping.
Avoiding zombies, of course.
Don’t expect anyone in this movie to act like normal people do, because they don’t. These are 1980s clichés who look good and dress even better. It’s hardly Shakespeare… heck, it isn’t even Shakespeare in Love. It’s big chunks of Velveeta with really great perms.
Look for Star Trek Voyager’s Robert Beltran in a lead role… he gets top billing, even though Catherine Mary Stewart is the main character. And the great Mary Woronov and Geoffrey Lewis play government workers who’s intentions are not very honorable.
For a low-budget movie, it looks great, with some nice cinematography and scenes. It’s no award winner, but it’s a solid piece of filmmaking. Night of the Comet is a fun little movie, fully deserving it’s fan base and cult status. Is it a GREAT movie? Nope. But if you are interested in seeing how Valley Girls would react to an apocalyptic event… well, here you are.