Night of the Comet first sighted in theaters on November 16, 1984


It is a little-known fact, buried somewhere between the invention of the cassette tape and the controversial decision to put pineapple on pizza, that on the sixteenth of November in the year 1984, the human race was quietly issued a cinematic memo informing it that, in the event of a comet passing perilously close to Earth and turning ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine percent of the population into either dust or zombies, the last remnants of civilization would be two Valley Girl sisters and a trucker.

The film in question was Night of the Comet, written and directed by Thom Eberhardt. It is nothing less than one of the quintessential 80s films, one that future generations and offworld guests will be shown, should they express a curiosity to truly understand what life was like in the 1980s. It shares cinematic DNA with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension - which opened earlier the same year - but presents a far more cinéma vérité approach in its depiction of the Reagan years.

Night of the Comet is a movie of trifectas. It features three touchstones of 80s life: a Tempest arcade machine, the shopping mall, and the zeitgeisty angst over nuclear war and its aftermath. And it features genuine movie star Catherine Mary Stewart, two-thirds of her way toward snatching the crown of Queen of 1980s Cinema. She had already appeared in The Last Starfighter that summer, and would later star in the iconic Weekend at Bernie's. 

The premise is elegantly simple: the Earth passes through the tail of the Alpha Orionis comet. Now, you might think the scientists had this covered. After all, they have telescopes and very serious expressions. But this is where the human capacity for error truly shines. The last time this happened, the dinosaurs were unceremoniously evicted from the planet. This time, humanity decides the appropriate response is to throw a block party and get a good look at the pretty lights.

Those not fortunate or unfortunate enough to be inside of a steel structure during this astronomical phenomenon are either reduced to a red powder, or transformed into flesh-eating zombies. The latter unsurprisingly presents a significant inconvenience for the few who survive.

Our heroines are Regina (Reg) Belmont and her sister Samantha, two young women whose grasp of astrophysics is slightly shaky but whose ability to wield automatic weapons while delivering one-liners about designer jeans is nothing short of inspiring. They are soon joined by Hector, a truck driver who appears to have wandered in from a completely different and slightly more competent film, and together they embark upon what is almost certainly the most relaxed apocalypse in cinematic history.

There is shopping, in perhaps the most definitive mall scene in all of 80s cinema. There is a spontaneous fashion montage set to Cyndi Lauper. There are evil scientists in an underground bunker who have clearly read the Evil Scientist Handbook and are determined to tick every box, including the one marked "inject themselves with contaminated serum and turn into cannibals because why not." And through it all drifts a sense of that peculiar Reaganite 80s optimism, as though the end of the world is simply an excuse for a really good party that got out of hand. In short, it's morning in America!

Night of the Comet is, ultimately, the cinematic equivalent of finding out that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have turned up on roller skates carrying pump-action shotguns, a six-pack of Tab, and a ghetto blaster. It is absurd, it is glorious, and it is deeply, deeply silly in a way that only the 1980s would allow.

Night of the Comet reminds us that even when the universe throws its worst at us, our primary impulse will probably be to find some snacks and go shopping. And that if cosmos is going to wipe out humanity, it will at least have the decency to leave behind someone who knows how to work a MAC-10 and still look fabulous doing it. The end of the world was never in better hands. Or better hair.


Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA

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