In his blurb for Buffy Summers’ entry inEntertainment Weekly’s comprehensive list of the “100 Greatest Characters,”Buffy the Vampire Slayercreator Joss Whedon wrote, “There’s a whole recipe for how to make a Buffy. Take one cup Sarah Connor from the firstTerminatormovie; one cup Ripley [fromAlien]; three tablespoons of the younger sister inNight of the Comet; a few sprigs ofA Little Princess— the book, not the movies; and a pinch of Jimmy Stewart.” WhileTerminator,Alien,A Little Princess, and James Stewart are all widely known staples of pop culture,Night of the Cometis more of a deep cut.
Night of the Cometrevolves around the Belmont sisters: 18-year-old Reggie, played by Catherine Mary Stewart, and 16-year-old Sam, played by Kelli Maroney. On the night that a comet crosses paths with Earth and huge crowds gather to witness the rare phenomenon, most of humanity is turned into either a pile of dust ora bloodthirsty zombie. Reggie and Sam are among the few survivors; Reggie because she spent the night in the steel-lined projection booth at the movie theater where she works and Sam because she spent the night in a steel backyard shed after a fight with her philandering stepmother. In the following days, the sisters contend with zombies, hostile survivors, and sinister researchers at an underground facility.
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It’s easy to see the influence that Sam had on Buffy’s creation. Both Sam and Reggie are badass monster hunters who rise to the occasion when zombies come after them, but they’re totally different characters. Whereas Reggie is calm and collected, Sam is flustered and emotional. Whereas Reggie is overly confident, Sam is deeply insecure. Sam sharesBuffy’s grace under fireas she ably takes on a gun-toting militia, but she also shares Buffy’s fear of loneliness, annoyed that her sister keeps snatching up every guy she likes – even after the apocalypse.
Like mostcult classics,Night of the Cometis a sincere take on silly material, which is where its charm comes from. As ominous as the mysterious effects of the comet are, the tone of the film is delightfully campy. It commits wholeheartedly to its daffy premise.Night of the Cometis very, very ‘80s. The style of this movie – the valley girl protagonists, the consumerist flash, the synth-heavy score, the brightly colored wardrobe, the pop ballads on the soundtrack – makes it a quintessential time capsule of the 1980s. After surviving the extinction of the human race, the sisters head straight to the mall to pick up some new threads and guns, lots of guns.
Night of the Cometwas written and directed by Thom Eberhardt, a master of tongue-in-cheek genre satire. He riffed on teen movie tropes inThe Night Before, starring Keanu Reeves as a high school nerd who loses his prom date and his memories, andparodied the Sherlock Holmes mysteriesinWithout a Clue, in which Dr. Watson is revealed to be the real genius while Holmes is just a dim-witted actor he hired to be the face of the operation. WithNight of the Comet, Eberhardt offered his own offbeat take on the post-apocalyptic genre in which the apocalypse is kind of a relief. Sam and Reggie enjoy the freedom of empty streets and an empty shopping mall; no work commitments, no needy boyfriends, and no evil stepmother. InNight of the Comet, the end of the world isn’t the end of the world.
According to John Kenneth Muir’sHorror Films of the 1980s, while he was developing the script forNight of the Comet, he spoke to real teenage girls and asked them what they would do if they woke up and everyone was gone. “Their immediate reaction was not to question where everybody went, why they were alone, nor to be afraid of anything,” Eberhardt explained. “Their immediate reaction was all the stuff that they could do.” Sam and Reggie aren’t interested in reversing the apocalypse and bringing everybody back – they’re having too much fun. They go on joyrides through the deserted streets of Los Angeles and head to an abandoned radio station to put themselves on the air.
Forfans ofBuffy the Vampire Slayerwho are looking for the next badass monster-hunting heroine to root for,Night of the Cometis a must-see. The first act spends just enough time setting up the arrival of the comet and introducing a pair of sisters who are stuck in their mundane lives before the comet hits, reduces most of humanity to dust, and frees the girls of their responsibilities. At a time when women were mostly included in horror films as fodder for the killers,Night of the Cometcame along with a pair of fierce women who are unfazed by the threat of zombies.
