The definitive moment in 1984’s horror/sci-fi comedy Night of the Comet takes place about halfway through the film as humanity’s last hope, teenage sisters Reggie and Sam Belmont (Catherine Mary Stewart and Kelli Maroney, respectively), parade around a seemingly vacant shopping mall trying on the latest trends in 80s teen fashion while Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” blares from the speakers. No one’s going to accuse the moment of being subtle, but it does manage to get the movie’s point across. It doesn’t matter if it’s a girl or a guy – teenagers just want to have fun.
That message, trite and unsophisticated as it may be, fits the B-movie vibe of the film like a glove. The film’s effects were probably dated a week after production wrapped, and the highest praise I can give the acting is passable at best. The rough plot – Earth passes through the tail of a comet that ends up killing most of the planet’s population and morphing the rest into zombie-like fiends, save for a select few who accidentally or knowingly barricade themselves under steel enforced structures – is nothing more than an amalgam of just about every late night cable horror/sci-fi movie you’ve ever seen. If you’re reminded of The Omega Man (made 12 years prior and itself a remake of 1964’s The Last Man on Earth and also remade in 2007 as I Am Legend), or the original Dawn of the Dead, you’re on the right track. Countless (bad) movies that no one remembers have been made using a similar premise as well. Night of the Comet has little in common with those films (the good ones or the bad ones) in the details or spirit, and that ultimately makes it a much different film than its predecessors.
In addition to the horror/sci-fi combo, the film mixes in another genre that was wildly popular at the time: the teen comedy. It ends up being the movie’s most interesting aspect and the main reason it rises above the cheese-fests it initially appears to hold as brethren. You can’t really talk about the 80s in film without mentioning the titanic wave of teen comedies. Whether you’re talking about Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Porky’s, the Revenge of the Nerds series, Teen Wolf, Back to the Future, Say Anything, Heathers, or the vast majority of John Hughes’ filmography, you just can’t ignore the sheer number of successful teen films made during the decade. In 1984, Night of the Comet fell firmly within a Hollywood culture that was very interested in making money off of teenagers and their plight. So, what we end up with is a mesh of horror/sci-fi and 80s teen comedy. It’s a unique sort of genre blending, and probably something only possible in the 80s.
The movie is worth seeing and praising because of how it manages to convey a tone that’s completely at odds with the world it creates. Someone searching for some deeper meaning might say that the conflict between the film’s background influences (horror/sci-fi films) and it’s more upfront influences (teen comedies) reflects the mindset of your typical teenager at odds with the teenage and adult worlds. The movies referenced by the plot give the viewer an automatic expectation of a movie that’s about survival and the loneliness of being the last few people on Earth. However, the film only generically touches on any of that. As the referenced scene at the beginning of this write-up alludes to, survival comes second to being fashionable. Hell, one might even make the case that in a teenager’s world, being fashionable is essential to survival.
There’s a clever one-liner towards the end where Sam “surprisingly” shows up in the nick of time to rescue Reggie that illustrates just how concerned the movie is with celebrating teenage life. Instead of Reggie giving Sam a hug or thanking her for saving her life, she utters the line, “cute outfit.” It’s certainly a girly, cheesy moment, but it’s played for laughs and works well within the context of the film.
Let’s also take a look at how the girls are able to survive the comet in the first place. It’s mentioned that being within a steel structure is the probable reason the comet doesn’t turn the girls into burnt orange dust. However, the reasons they’re in those steel structures in the first place are more important to the movie than them simply being underneath steel beams. Reggie is holing up in the projection room of the movie theater where she works to have sex with her boyfriend. It’s also worth mentioning that she lied to her step mother about where she would be for the night. Sam gets into an actual fight with her nasty, bitch of a stepmother, and runs away from home and sleeps in a yard shed. It’s also later revealed that Hector (the last man on Earth, and the man the girls bicker about) spent the night in the bed of his steel truck with a woman he recently picked up. The point is all three are behaving like normal teenagers by lying to their parents, fighting with their parents, having sex, and running away from home. Since we’ve all seen Scream and know the “rules of horror movies”, these actions would normally land them all as the first victims of the film. Instead, these kids aren’t killed for acting irresponsibly, but are rewarded for their actions and become the heroes of our movie.
The film’s final act introduces us to a group of scientists who prepared for the comet’s arrival by creating an underground bunker. They’re working on a serum that they hope will cure those who survived but are being turned into zombies. The idea behind this plot thread is to serve as a point of contrast to the teenagers. The scientists represent the adult world’s conservativeness and selfishness. The group eventually becomes exposed to the virus because of a silly little detail they overlooked. They begin coaxing younger people (teenagers and children) into their underground bunker, in order to use them as guinea pigs to find a cure. They are quite literally sucking the life out of these kids. The point is that by not trying to safeguard against every possible negative outcomes, and instead having some fun, you’ll live a better life. It’s an interesting way to state your point, but this plot development bogs the film down and takes away from the unadulterated fun vibe the first two-thirds of the film has.
Given the odd combination of movie genres that make up Night of the Comet, it’s easy to see why this is more of a cult film than a classic from the 80s. To me, a movie described as a teenage zombie comedy is something I’m going to make a point of seeing. That’s because I’m awesome. Not everyone is, and that’s something we all have to come to terms with. Night of the Comet isn’t a great, or scary, movie, but it’s a fun one because of its attention to detail, clever writing, and energy. There’s more brains put into this than you would expect, and more than in virtually any blockbuster made today. I appreciated the effort and the result.
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