Night of the Comet (1984) Usherette, Cheerleader & Commander Chakotay Fight The Cannibal Zombies

1984 was the year at school we read the John Wyndham novel called The Day Of The Triffids for English. You would of hoped it would be part of all educational learning, to be a forewarning at least for when a breathtaking and magnificent light show of comets appear in the sky. To be taught the first thing you do is bandage your eyes and hide in a windowless room. No matter how mind-blowing and eye-poppingly wonderous the visual light show is, The Triffids pre-warned us, it’s gonna get real bad, real quick!

Tagline – The comet’s coming, and the world will never be the same.

This time it maybe be a tad worse than going blind and getting stalked by ridiculously silly walking sticks of celery which happen to want to eat your brains. This Night Of The Comet incinerates you to a pile of dust if you’re lucky or if you’re not, you slowly become a cannibalistic zombie. The Earth suddenly becomes not a very nice place to live, well unless you can make the most of it. Lucky we have some kick-ass heros happy to dance around in a 80’s joyful groove, give us a montage or two, whilst shopping and innocently wander around a deserted unpopulated world with not a real care in the world.

First up is Tempest arcade champion, the feisty cinema usherette, Regina Belmont played by Catherine Mary Stewart (The Last Starfighter and Weekend at Bernies).  Then there’s her annoying and bubbly little cheerleader sister Samantha Belmont played by Kelli Maroney (Chopping Mall and The Zero Boys). What these two saucy girls need is a tough hunky guy to help them out, in walks Hector Gomez played by Robert Beltran, Star Trek Voyager’s very own Commander Chakotay. But hey these two girls don’t need any man to look after them, these girls are packing heat, thanks to their Dad’s military upbringing.

Regina Belmont – “Come on Hector, the MAC-10 submachine gun was practically designed for housewives.”
Samantha Belmont – “See, this is the problem with these things. Daddy would have gotten us Uzis.”

Could there be any more people left on this forsaken empty world who aren’t a pile of dust or ready to eat their flesh? Could there be an secret underground facility with army personnel and scientists working out a plan for this apocalyptic dilemma? Can these three survivors stick together, stay alive and most importantly dance about whilst giving a 80’s fashion show come gun fight?

Tagline – The last time it came, the dinosaurs disappeared.

• The empty filming locations of the city are really neat with the red and orange hue like dust cloud. Add to that the two sisters in their bright clothing, massive hair and carrying guns around.
• Look out for Mary Woronov who plays Audrey White, she has a small but great part, I don’t believe I’ve seen her before and thought she stood out. Plus the man who is most probably in absolutely everything, Geoffrey Lewis pops up as Dr Carter.

• Fun fact, I read that Joss Whedon apparently had this as a big influence on his Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie.
• The movie is directed by Thom Eberhardt. I notice that he made the super Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley fun take on Sherlock Holmes in the 1988 film Without A Clue.
• Makes a great double bill with Night of the Creeps (1986) Alien Brain Bug Zombie Parasites.

At the time of writing Night Of The Comet is featured on Netflix and if you haven’t seen it, grab some beer and popcorn, sit back in the lazyboy and press play for some entertaining, cheesy end of the world fun.

Here’s the trailer

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