Horrorfest 2012: Night of the Comet

And now for perhaps the most cheerful horror movie I've ever seen, 1984's NIGHT OF THE COMET. Sure, it's about the end of the world, but it's also about how you can't ruin a couple of girls' good time.

Opening narration lets us know that a comet that hasn't passed through Earth's orbit since the extinction of the dinosaurs is about to make another fly-by. Some scientists have suspected this might result in death and destruction, so they've entered a safe bunker in an effort to perpetuate the species. Meanwhile, everyone else on Earth views the comet's fly-by as an event warranting the kind of celebrations normally reserved for New Year's Eve.

Of course, the scientists are right, and most of the people of Earth are reduced to piles of dust as the comet passes. There are a few survivors -- a few who made it out okay, and some others who have been turned into zombie-like beings.

Among these survivors are our two heroines, a pair of 80s-tastic teenage sisters played by Catherine Mary Stewart and Kelli Maroney. Stewart's the older and wiser of the two (she's 18 and has a job at the movie theater, after all) and Maroney is a boy-crazy cheerleader. They represent versions of the valley girl stereotype that was so popular in the 80s, but the screenplay allows them to be a little more three dimensional than your average movie teenager, especially for girls. That's not to say they aren't still funny and ridiculous -- they are. They're just human at the same time.

The girls were brought up by a military dad, so they know their way around automatic weapons, which comes in handy as they traverse the almost empty post apocalyptic landscape of Los Angeles. They team up with a trucker (Robert Beltran) and eventually have a run in with the afore-mentioned scientists who turn out not to be quite as on top of things as we were originally led to believe. So, aside from humor and horror, there are some surprises, here.

One of the best scenes is a sequence in which the girls realize they can go through the mall and get whatever they want, now that it's the end of the world and no one is watching. They carefully set down their automatic weapons, then prance through the mall trying things on set to "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. The film seems so firmly rooted in the 80s that it's almost as if it was made now, looking back nostalgically at the time. It's not dated so much as it is a perfect snapshot of a moment in time, with all the good stuff and none of the bad stuff.

There is real life to this movie, despite the fact that it is an end of the world story. That's nice and refreshing, since so many of these apocalyptic flicks tend to be cynical and hateful, with an underlying message that they might be kinda glad that mankind is over. This apocalypse is faced down by two teenage girls who are at times appropriately bummed, but plucky enough to get on with it.