Night of the Comet (1984)

[4]

After a comet wipes out most of Earth’s population, a valley girl and her sister roam the empty streets of Los Angeles fighting zombies and entangling with a shady group of scientists who want to harvest their blood. Night of the Comet sounds like it could be a fun genre romp, but writer/director Thom Eberhardt (Captain Ron, Gross Anatomy) never finds the right tone for the movie. The horror is relegated to a small handful of zombie attacks that end up feeling out of place against the greater, more dramatic scenario, that of two young women finding themselves all alone in the world. And when the film does touch upon compelling dramatic elements, it’s instantly undercut by attempts at comedy.

Catherine Mary Stewart (The Last Starfighter) and Kelli Maroney, in the lead roles, embody the film’s tonal problem. Their performances are neither grounded, nor comedically over-the-top, when either approach would have made the film more interesting. They are flat performances in a movie with a flat script. The story promises to get more interesting when the women meet a third survivor, played by Robert Beltran, but the relationships are so underdeveloped, one wonders why Beltran’s character is introduced at all.

The most striking character is one of the scientists played by Mary Woronov. With the rest of the cast and crew ambivalent about the how to tackle the material, Woronov seems to have made the decision to take the film absolutely seriously. Her character and performance are the only things with any much needed weight in Night of the Comet.

I enjoyed Eberhardt’s depiction of a vacated, desolate Los Angeles. It creates a unique atmosphere that few other films have achieved. I also love the concept of ‘the last humans on Earth’, but I’ve yet to see a film mine that concept to its full dramatic potential. Night of the Comet has these assets in its sandbox, but doesn’t quite know what to do with them.

With Geoffrey Lewis.