Thomas Coleman and Michael Rosenblatt
Productions, 1984
starring: Catherine Mary Stewart, Kellie Maroney, Robert Beltran and Geoffrey Lewis
written and directed by: Thom Eberhardt

the plot: A comet is set to pass by Earth, and the whole world’s abuzz about the once-in-a-lifetime celestial event. That is, except for sisters Regina (Stewart) and Samantha (Maroney), a pair of Valley girls more concerned about their step mom’s extra-marital escapades and their own earthly entanglements than any heavenly body. All that changes the morning after the comet’s appearance, when Regina and Sam wake up to find most of humanity reduced to piles of red dust. Those who weren’t disintegrated have been turned into raving, ravenous zombies, and Sam and Regina go on the run in search of other survivors. While hanging out at a radio station, they meet Hector (Beltran), a gregarious truck driver determined to make it through the crisis. As the trio fends off zombies, they learn of the existence of another group of survivors—a military “think tank” that predicted the disaster and hid in a bunker out in the desert. Led by a man named Carter (Lewis), the members of the think tank quickly round up any survivors they can find. Their motives appear benign, but as Sam and Regina learn more about Carter and his crew, they discover there are fates worse than being turned into a zombie or reduced to a pile of dust.

why it’s good: Pop quiz: it’s the 1980s, you’re a teenager, and the apocalypse just happened while you were asleep—what do you do? If any part of your answer involves going to the mall, shooting cars with automatic weapons, drinking a metric ton of Diet Pepsi and playing arcade games, then “Night of the Comet” may be the movie for you. But even if the whole apocalypse-lite scenario isn’t your bag, “Night” is still pretty likable, perhaps more likeable than any movie about bloodthirsty scientists and leathery-skinned zombies has any right to be. “Night” is as light and bubbly as Kellie Maroney’s ditzy character, Samantha, and that happy-go-lucky tone has a lot to do with the movie’s success. For a film about zombies and doomsday comets, “Night” is relaxed and mellow. Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart both give solid performances backed by a strong, character-focused script by Thom Eberhardt. That script makes the few times the movie descends into scare territory all the more suspenseful. A sequence inside a seemingly deserted mall starts out poppy and fun, complete with a shopping montage set to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” but things quickly get tense and weird when the girls run into a gang of zombified mall employees armed with guns and a game show fetish. “Comet” doesn’t have anything deep to say about the end of the world, but it’s pitch-perfect blend of dry comedy, suspense and well-rounded characters keeps it from being shallow camp.

why you should own it: “Night of the Comet” remained in home video limbo until 2007, but MGM’s DVD is thoroughly unspectacular. It is cheap, though, and “Comet” does make for a nice light addition to any sci-fi library.