Night of the Comet (1984)

Night of the Comet (1984), written and directed by Thom Eberhardt.

What do two sisters do when a comet has reduced most of the human race to red powder and the others to savage carnivorous zombies? Get guns and head to the mall!

A lightly comic end of the world story, mashing up a lot of earlier efforts. The chief funny bit is the juxtaposition of the girls' pretty good army-brat survival skills ("Daddy would have gotten us Uzis") with their shop till you drop and competitive dating interests.

I remember a lot more zombie-action than is actually here. We have just a couple of incidents. It begins like a John Carpenter-genre film, but that may be another bit of mash-up.

I confess: there are some funny bits and the mall segment made me laugh. They are supposed to be using Valley-Girl-speak, but it is less noticeable now. Maybe the language has changed and we've gotten used to it. Or it was never there.

I'm luke-warm on this one. Good concept, could have been better done.

Shout Factory Blu-ray with three commentary tracks and other extras.

There is a Peter Yates film, written by William Goldman: Year of the Comet (1992), a flopped action/romantic comedy. It's not very good, but my wife wants it. The PAL DVD is out of print and was cropped. (Later: available on Blu-ray from Twilight Time).