Night of the Comet (1984)
Last Watch Date - December 10, 2023
Total Times Watched - Once
Comments
It's Christmastime! You know what that means. Heartwarming, feel-good movies about Santa and the joys of family. OR movies that happen to occur at/near Christmas that also have murder? Obviously my preference is for the latter.
Night of the Comet is theoretically a horror comedy, but it doesn't have much of any horror and it doesn't really have much of any comedy either. It's really more of a sort of sci-fi post-apocalyptic movie. I'm not going to spoil the latter parts of the story, but the basic gist here is that a comet that also came by earth 65 million years ago is about to swing by. It's the event of your life, you NEED to see this! But uh, it turns out the comet has some sort of effect on your body and you either immediately turn to dust OR slowly turn to dust. Unless you shelter in a steel container!
Maybe that's the funny bit. I'm not sure. There are some "silly" bits in the shopping mall that I suppose lean comedy but it never makes you even chuckle, really. Partly because the script is terrible. They mention "making it" so many times. Who the F is using "make it" as a euphemism for sex? I have definitely heard it before but ugh. It's annoying. It's not just that, it's a whole lot of terrible dialogue. The story does it no favors, either. It's a stupid story. Oddly, it ends in what I would consider one of the most depressing and hopeless ways possible.
The acting in this movie is bad. You will see a few familiar faces, but overall it's a bunch of who cares regional theatering their way through. The pacing doesn't help either, despite it only being 95ish minutes. It feels much, much longer. So little happens in it that it could've easily been an episode of the Twilight Zone and wrapped up in 22 minutes. And to be frank, it would've worked better that way.
I know it sounds like I hated it, but that's not true. The sets were cool and I liked the reddish tinge to everything outside. It had nice makeup effects and uhh, it was also around Christmas. So that was cool?
Recommended?
Nope. It's not good. It's not AWFUL. It just is.
