Night of the Comet (1984, Thom Eberhardt) (Patreon)

56/100

Second viewing, last seen...oh, I'm gonna guess sometime around 1987–88. Definitely didn't catch it in theatrical release (despite being a teenager at the time), perhaps because trailers suggested that the movie consists primarily of two Valley girls on a giddy shopping spree after the world ends, supplemented by some half-hearted Dawn of the Dead-style mall-zombie action. To be honest, that was still my dimly recalled précis, decades later, and so I was quite surprised to discover that Night of the Comet in fact spends only a few minutes watching Reggie and Sam try on expensive clothes and dance around to then-contemporary budget pop (feat. an impressive Cyndi Lauper sound-alike for the inevitable "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" montage). In my defense, that stretch lodges in memory because the narrative as a whole is fairly incoherent, waiting until very late to finally settle upon a clear-cut danger/antagonist. Addressing the grim reality of what happens to civilization when virtually nobody's left to maintain it (à la, say, In My Room) would be far too heavy for this sort of antic goof, so instead we get a scenario in which our three heroes are totally fine, while other survivors are in the process of turning into zombies, and still others have already completed the transition. Only two or three proper ghouls ever show up, though, and it takes forever to establish the scientists as unethical to the point of depravity. In between, we get...evil department-store stockboys? The whole thing seems pretty half-assed, especially when Hector drives off for a bland solo adventure almost immediately after being introduced. Ask me what happens in this movie even five years hence, and I'll likely revert to "post-apocalyptic shopping," just because everything else will have dissipated again. 

Hopefully, though, I'll retain the affection instilled by these two thoroughly winning performances (which apparently bounced off me the first time). Catherine Mary Stewart and Kelli Maroney aren't remotely plausible as sisters, but who cares when their earnest + daffy dynamic has been so expertly calibrated? Maroney, in particular, seems almost preternaturally relaxed in a role that invites outlandish caricature, making her lines funnier by delivering them sans any aggressive, Moon Unit-esque topspin. I do wish that the script itself were significantly sharper—only Sam asking Reggie "Do you think whatever happened happened everywhere? Like in Burbank or places like that?" got an outright laugh from me (and maybe you need to have spent some time living in or near L.A. for that dry joke to land)—but this is one of those cases in which the pleasure of hanging out with amusing, likeable characters at least partially compensates for a dearth of wit. Plus there's Mary Woronov treating her dopey subplot as if it were Strindberg, which almost manages to sell what's otherwise an obvious fake-out (simply because, again, it'd be way too bleak for this movie). Eberhardt was never a formalist, to put it politely, but he does at least take full advantage of always-reliable empty-streets imagery, made creepier than usual by dressing the sidewalk with various outfits surrounding little piles of dust. (Should've been more cars left idling in the road, though.) Still can't say that I bought the proffered happy ending, which requires ignoring everything you can intuit about what the future holds for this newly constituted family, but waiting almost 90 full minutes to pay off "DMK" (ah, Tempest; I was more of a Venture aficionado, but that rotary geometry was hard to resist) is a baller move.