Night of the Comet

(1984) **1/2

In 1984, this film followed two California girls' survival after a comet on an extreme elliptical orbit emits radiation upon the earth, changing life forever. In the summer of 2013, I watched the entire series of Carl Sagan's Cosmos, which discusses such comets and elliptical planetary motion. The two events have nothing in common, but I am a math teacher, and I love ellipses.

Regina is a budding young woman of 18 and wants independence from her overbearing and manipulative step-mother (wait, didn't I just review a Disney-related movie?!??). She finds retreat in her job at the movie theater playing Tempest at the arcade and doing the film booth guy. Everyone seems to find the comet intriguing except for Regina, and this works to her advantage. There are, of course, survivors, and figuring out life after the comet is going to be a challenge, but Regina and her sister Samantha are tough enough to stick it out and have fun, too. I found myself curious about what life was like before the comet, but at a succinct 95 minutes and after a particularly grueling week I didn't find myself that curious. It is easy to give away all of this plot in one standard-sized paragraph, but I found the campiness and plot "twists" to be a lot more enjoyable when I knew barely anything about it.

Such splendid things are sibling bonds made of. Surviving intergalactic radiation and finding the perfect pair of heels.

Johnny Sweatpants is the only other person who's reviewed this film, and it's easy to see why. The campy narration in the beginning, big 80's hair, shopping mall montage, and secret government subplot have been done over and over, for better or for worse, and Night of the Comet falls in the exact median in its execution of aforementioned plot devices. This doesn't make it a winner, but it isn't a loser, either.