Apocalypse Valley Style
A comet is passing close to earth on Christmas. The last time it went by was 65 million years ago during the last days of the dinosaurs. The next day two sisters from Los Angeles, Regina Belmont (Catherine Mary Stewart) and her gum chewing cheerleader sister Samantha (Kelli Maroney), find that they are the only two people left in the world other than a couple zombie creatures. Everyone else has disintegrated into a pile of reddish sand-like substance.
Now the girls need to stay alive while trying to find anyone else that may have survived the holocaust. At least until the zombies slowly disintegrate into dust themselves. It doesn’t hurt that both girls kick ass and know their way around a sub machine gun.
After a little shopping and a trip to the gun store they eventually team up with long haul trucker, Hector Gomez (Robert Beltran). Not knowing what to do they finally decide to check out the local radio station. Bored, Samantha gets on the mike and broadcasts to all of downtown Los Angeles. Time to have a little fun and play some records. And then the phone rings.
"Night of the Comet" was released in 1984 and was directed by Thom Eberhardt. I’m not a big zombie fan so for me to love a zombie movie it has to have something special about it. “The Night of The Comet” is one of those movies. The title alone sounds dark and foreboding. As does the first sequence of the movie with the announcer’s resonating tones. After that it’s camp. What could be better than zombies and Valley Girls? This little gem started its reputation slow and bit by bit built up a fan base that made it a classic. Admittedly it only has a couple full fledged zombies the rest are wanna-bes but all you need is one to earn the classification.
Don’t expect any zombie munching or a lot of gore. They aren’t that kind of zombies. It’s not exactly a comedy either. Or horror. It’s sort of science fiction but with a little something extra. If you had to classify it I might go with just Far Fetched. Works for me.