NIGHT OF THE COMET (1984)

On one fateful night in 1984, a comet passed over Earth. For the first time in 65 million years, the visitor was returning to our small portion of the cosmos. It was completing an orbit so large that the last time this fiery ball of rock cast its light on this section of the galaxy, the dinosaurs presumably looked up in amazement. Either that’s just a coincidence, or a portentous omen that you should spend the night in a bunker.

Regina ‘Reggie’ Belmont (Catherine Mary Stewart) considers neither option. She sleeps through the predicted meteor shower, and when she wakes, she discovers that the streets are entirely empty. Los Angeles, which just the night before was packed with denizens wanting to catch a glimpse of the infamous comet, is now a total ghost town. Well, perhaps not totally: much to her relief, her sister Sam (Kelli Maroney) has survived, as has Hector Gomez (Robert Beltran), an affable truck driver. Unfortunately, they’re not alone, and some of the other shapes slinking around downtown L.A. aren’t quite as friendly as this misfit trio…

Night of the Comet is a quintessentially 1980s B-movie. There are no real stakes, and no genuine threat to detract from the fun, camp atmosphere that first-time director Thom Eberhardt creates. Don’t come into this post-apocalyptic film expecting Mad Max (1979), Children of Men (2006), or The Road (2009). Civilisation has fallen away, but that’s alright: there’s no use crying about it when there’s still so much fun to be had.

This narrative approach reveals immediately that Night of the Comet is a product of its time. Though it clearly takes inspiration from Richard Matheson’s immensely influential 1954 novel I Am Legend, it features none of the gritty realism or gloomy post-war mood that characterises this novel. Instead, Eberhardt’s debut is deeply entrenched in the style, fashion, and mentality of Reagan’s America: though concerns for the AIDS epidemic, the escalation of nuclear conflict, and consumerism abound, they never feel remotely serious.

Whether Eberhardt even intended on weaving these motifs into his story is debatable. One could easily make the argument that he was actively exploiting the average American’s fears about a government elite hiding underground to survive a nuclear winter, à la Dr. Strangelove (1964). Or, perhaps, that the need for untainted blood reflected a nation’s newfound fear of contamination. As survivors with pallid skin and sunken eyes lust after the healthy youth, desperate for their vitality, it feels as though it’s a dramatisation of those terminally ill, trying to survive in an inhospitable environment with a failing immune system.

However, while all the symbolism is there, I can’t sincerely believe that Eberhardt was attempting such a sociocultural critique. Even when the sisters run ecstatically to the mall, their shopping spree lacks the excoriating bite of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978). It doesn’t feel like a challenge to the contemporary consumerism that typified their society. Instead, it appears to be a celebration of the bounties of capitalism. In one of the most American exchanges I’ve ever heard, two valley girls express product dissatisfaction with their semi-automatic weapons, which keep jamming: “See, this is the problem with these things. Daddy would have gotten us Uzis.”

In these respects, Eberhardt’s film is rather obviously derivative, borrowing the aesthetic of his favourite post-apocalyptic movies, but neglecting their thematic background. However, it must be said that he and cinematographer Arthur Albert get some terrific shots of a vacant L.A., revealing the film to be a great exercise in guerrilla-style independent filmmaking. Most of these sequences were filmed during average mornings as people drove to work, with the crew hurrying to get their shots organised as traffic was waiting at stop lights.

The visual effect works, even if a matching tone is lacking. Deserted streets, which are usually so busy, dwarf our protagonists. As piles of clothes litter the street, and the vaporised remains of L.A. citizens swirl in the wind (which was actually red brick dust), the result may not be chilling nor poignant, but it’s certainly admirable that they achieved such an aesthetic on such a meagre budget. With only $700,000 to create this post-apocalyptic world, there are some holes present in the filmmaking, but it’s impressive nonetheless.

You may forgive the poor sound quality, which is inarguably bad in some scenes where the room is too big to capture clean audio; the echoes that reverberate around the walls are enough to remind any independent filmmaker that good sound is perhaps even more important to obtain than a clear image. The eye can forgive, but amateurish audio ensures even the most invested viewer will have trouble suspending disbelief.

It doesn’t help that the acting is pretty dire. While the two sisters generally have good chemistry and carry scenes together well (albeit not entirely convincingly), poor performances are exacerbated when Hector arrives. There’s a lot of pointless shouting at each other, with forced conflict being employed to disguise the fact that nothing is actually happening. This includes infighting between our heroic trio, as well as a senseless shoot-out in the mall, which remains completely inexplicable.

Most of these issues stem from a weak screenplay. While the story and dialogue are superficial and vacuous, it seems at least that the script is supposed to be vapid. Eberhardt has no illusions of reinventing the wheel: he includes the love and action that his target demographic (‘80s adolescents) wanted to see, and very little else. In fact, the romance plot-line is so immediate and so obvious that it’s almost comical. While he attempts to employ the fractious alliances that typify post-apocalyptic narratives, these are devoid of an iota of actual tension.

In many respects, the film has dated. It’s something that cast member Mary Woronov had predicted would happen, stating a couple of years later that the film wouldn’t experience any longevity. While she was technically wrong — this B-movie went on to become a cult classic — she was correct in asserting that Night of the Comet was a “fad movie”. Succinctly, she claimed: “It’s not ahead of its time, and it’s not behind its time. It’s just a combination of ‘in’ elements.”

It’s difficult to refute this argument. There’s nothing necessarily remarkable about Night of the Comet, besides the fact it’s a serviceable time capsule. Today, the film is only truly watchable as a cosy exercise in nostalgia. The eerie music, the opening voiceover (which pays homage to the science-fiction B-movies of the 1950s), and the iconography of ‘80s America all serve to take you back to a very exact moment in a very precise place.

Even if you never lived in that time or place, you’ve seen it so much at the movies now that you may as well have: video game arcades, movie theatres, shopping malls. With Stranger Things serving as the zenith of this baseless, superficial adoration of all things ‘80s, along with other examples of modern media that seem hell-bent on paying homage to every single minute of that decade, I find nothing stands out stylistically in this film. Night of the Comet imitated what was in vogue then, and that’s being mimicked today by filmmakers who were children in 1984. These films begin to feel like cinematic Matryoshka dolls, each new product plainly originating from and copying the other wholesale, with the results being lesser each time.

However, Eberhardt at least has fun with its premise, which is all he ever really wanted to do. It was never supposed to be a dark and dismal depiction of apocalyptic survival. There isn’t even any mourning done for the dead, and this can feel slightly bizarre at times. Hector is never once upset that his mother was vaporised, despite the fact he made a big deal about how important it was for him to know whether she survived. Moreover, neither Reggie nor Sam stop to grieve their father. They’re too busy enjoying themselves.

Ultimately, we settle in for the ride and stop questioning the obvious. Even the fatalism on display is very tongue in cheek. As one character accepts her demise, she intones glibly: “I’ll miss Christmas—permanently.” In another example of this, Reggie tells her sister to take care of her skin: “The dermatologist is dead, you know.” Such are the concerns of the new world order. Everyone take note.

Perhaps it’s because Night of the Comet hits every narrative beat that a 1980s blockbuster was expected to: the ugly stepmother archetype, a rebellious youth plot-line, fun prosthetics, upbeat soundtrack, and distrust of authority figures. It’s little more than a camp cult classic, and it never attempts to be anything more. It almost feels as though Eberhardt intended on making a film to be discovered in the rental section at a Blockbuster.

For these reasons, Night of the Comet is charming in its own unique way. The sisterly bond on display is touching, and there’s a happy ending, because why wouldn’t there be? This isn’t 28 Days Later (2002). You might wonder why it is that all our protagonists are completely unaffected by the comet’s rays (or toxins or whatever it is that killed everyone), and you’d be right to question this unexplained detail, but it’s irrelevant. They’re alive because they’re alive— nothing has been taken all that seriously up until now, so there’s no sense in starting in the last two minutes. As Reggie intones whimsically: “The whole burden of civilisation has fallen on us.” As 80s an ending as you can imagine, it’s clear that the future belongs to kids. And, perhaps, that’s not such a bad thing.

USA | 1984 | 95 MINUTES | 1.33:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

writer & director: Thom Eberhardt.
starring: Robert Beltran, Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, Sharon Farrell, Mary Woronov & Geoffrey Lewis.