It’s definitely the 1980s when the world ends and the cast just wants to go to the mall.
What They Say:
It’s the first comet to buzz the planet in 65 million years, and everyone seems to be celebrating its imminent arrival. Everyone, that is, except Regina Belmont (Catherine Mary Stewart, The Last Starfighter) and her younger sister Samantha (Kelli Maroney, Chopping Mall), two Valley Girls who care more about fashion trends than the celestial phenomenon. But upon daybreak, when the girls discover that they’re the only residents of Los Angeles whom the comet hasn’t vaporized or turned into a zombie, they do what all good Valley Girls do…they go shopping! But when their day of malling threatens to become a day of mauling, these gals flee with killer zombies and blood-seeking scientists in hot pursuit!
4K UHD Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original stereo mix for the film as well as the redone 5.1 mix that came sometime later, both of which are encoded using the DTS-HD MA lossless codec. Considering my last experience with this film is when it was broadcast on HBO originally, anything here is going to be an improvement over that. I opted for the 5.1 mix and didn’t expect much to be thrown to the rear speakers but it had a bit here and there that I could tell. As a forward soundstage production, it does a good job of capturing the original work and what it was trying to do and how it handled the basic action. The biggest area to enjoy for a lot of people in this regard is going to be the music and it delivers well there with a rich and warm feeling. The dialogue moves as needed across the forward soundstage but most of how scenes are set up keeps things pretty simple but effective.
Video:
Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 in 2160p using the HEVC / H.265 encoding, the 4K release of this film is definitely what I was hoping for. With it coming from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative according to the selling material, the result here is pretty fantastic. The film retains the grain it needs to in the areas where it should be noticeable – especially the first couple of minutes – but once you hit the red credits and get the stability and solidity there and then onto the full film itself is definitely delights. It’s a pretty low-budget film made forty years ago but I love the look of the red-hued skies that we get and the reflections in the buildings, the details that are visible throughout it, and just the overall clarity. It has such a great warm feeling throughout it while also being able to capture the vibrancy of the period, notably in the radio station. The shopping mall segment makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time and can just walk through those aisles and see it all. Having missed out on both DVD and Blu-ray editions previously, I can’t compare but this is just a fantastic-looking release.
Packaging:
The packaging for this release comes in a standard-sized Blu-ray case with a slipcover that replicates the front cover artwork. The main cover is pretty nicely done in how it blends some of the night of material with the day-after pieces and I almost want to say makes it a more interesting film than it is based on what’s here. The slipcover definitely helps with its color quality thanks to the material compared to the case itself but both are good. The back cover is rearranged differently from slipcover to case but it covers the basics with the summary while the extras are all clearly listed as well with what discs they’re on. The production information and other technical specs round out the bottom part of the covers as well. No show-related inserts are included nor is there a reversible cover.
Menu:
The menu for this release is pretty basic with a quarter of the screen on the left given over to the navigation and a decent slice of the cover artwork applied to it. The non-commentary extras are all on the Blu-ray side of things so the 4K release doesn’t have anything in the menu besides the basic setup and playing the feature itself. We get a lot of clips from the film playing out on the rest of the menu and it works well to get you in the mood for what’s to come and the style of it all. The side panel serves as the pop-up menus during playback and definitely is fun to see and navigate though it doesn’t have much to do during playback itself since there’s nothing else really here.
Extras:
With the extras from the previous release on the Blu-ray disc, there’s a lot here that I’ll be digging into for the next few months as the mood hits since there are a trio of commentary tracks worth listening to and a trio of interview sessions that should be interesting in retrospect all these years ago.
Audio Commentary with Actors Kelli Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart
Audio Commentary with Director Thom Eberhardt
Audio Commentary with Production Designer John Muto
Valley Girls at the End of the World: Interview with Kelli Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart
The Last Man on Earth?: Interview with Actor Robert Beltran
Curse of the Comet: Interview with Makeup Effects Creator David B. Miller
Theatrical Trailer
Galleries: Movie Stills and Behind-the-Scenes Photos
One of the things that sticks with a lot of genre fans who grew up in the 80s as teenagers is that thanks to early cable access, we were delivered a regular and steady diet of the same thing. If you turned on HBO or another cable station during that time, you would regularly see a lot of familiar movies over and over again. It’s how Highlander became a cult favorite among other more high-profile movies being shown constantly. One that clicked for me was the November 1984 film Night of the Comet. As a thirteen-year-old boy when it came out, I didn’t see it until it made the regular rotation a year later but the film is one that offered up an interesting if incredibly simple view of what the end of the world would be like. Written and directed by Thom Eberhardt, it’s fascinating to go back to it for the first time since those viewings all those decades ago and realize that I remember it almost perfectly and can engage in some simple nostalgia with it.
The premise is simple enough in that life on Earth largely ends on Christmas holiday season day when a comet that hasn’t been near earth for sixty-five million years returns. Everyone is excited to see the comet and while we don’t see it happen, when it comes by it basically turns the sky red with its dust and that in turn basically turns everyone to dust. A few scientists put the clues together about the dinosaur extinction and sealed themselves up ahead of its return and a few scattered people around the world (presumably) ended up in places that protected them not knowing that the world was going to end. So these stragglers come out into an empty world the next day finding just piles of clothes and dust everywhere and that’s it. Well, they also find those that didn’t turn to dust as a very small amount basically becomes twisted monsters that are like a zombie but can’t be quite pinned down that way. We do see some people slowly being impacted by the dust later that’s turning them into this dark and grim way as well but it’s not heavily explored or focused on.
The film focuses on eighteen-year-old Regina, a young working woman who I think is still in high school who ends up surviving thanks to spending the night in the film projection room at the movie theater she works at with her sorta boyfriend. While he’s quickly offed, she spends her time trying to find her sixteen-year-old sister Sam because their father, who is off in Central America fighting Sandinistas, taught them some basic survival. It’s amusing to watch as Reggie tries to convince Sam of what’s happening as she’s seen the scale of it while driving back home on her now-dead boyfriend’s motorcycle while Sam is just focusing on getting ready for cheerleading practice while wearing her uniform. The two end up trying to find more people that might be alive, leading them to a radio station that’s running (our early introduction to jobs being automated) and connecting with a man named Hector who also survived and basically aligns himself with them when he’s not getting into trouble elsewhere. It’s an odd group to be sure and the weirdness of Reggie and Hector getting together by the end considering the age gap is a bit unsettling – even for the end of the world.
What the film does is pretty much a fun romp of an early 1980s low-budge science fiction romp is. Our leads get a couple of guns (complaining that daddy would have gotten them Uzis) and showing off some basic but respectable skills. They’ve got a ride to use as well but their big thing after Hector goes off to find out what happened to his mother is to spend time at the mall. The local shopping arcade is fun to watch as we get a montage of songs, dancing, and dress-up as you’d expect before it turns violent as a few former stock boys that worked in the basement there decided to take over and give in to their violent fantasies. It’s a decent little shoot-up piece and plays into some of those elements well where you want to yell at the leads to stop leaving their guns everywhere and be at least a little aware.
The film does provide for a big bad villain for the cast to play against with the think tank coming after survivors for their own nefarious purposes, which feels a bit odd at times but comes from their own base not being as locked down as it needs to be. It gives the characters something to deal with other than just a host of zombie-like people or others who have taken up just being street scavengers. There’s a weirdness to it where everyone is kind of all-in on the grim stuff, including basically sucking two tweens dry of their blood in order to keep the scientists alive, but it’s pretty much the kind of paper-thin subplot that you’d expect for a project like this. A bit more clarity and depth would have given it more but again, this is such a low-budget film that I’m surprised they accomplished as much as they did.
The film definitely lucked out with its cast along the way. Catherine Mary Stewart went on to a pretty enjoyable career that’s still going on these days. In the July before this came out, she played the lead woman in The Last Starfighter and basically locked up what many called the proto-Buffy the Vampire inspiration look and approach that morphed in the 1990s. Kelly Maroney as Sam was definitely one of the up-and-coming it girls from her work in Ryan’s Hope for the years before this and it translated well into a lot of B-movie projects in the 80s and a resurgence in the past few years with a few other horror projects. Robert Beltran as Hector is amusing to see in retrospect since he went on to Star Trek: Voyager a decade later but he had a lot of TV and film work before and after Night of the Comet – though I always got the sense that the live theater is where he preferred to be. Knowing him largely from Voyager, it was interesting to go back and make this new mental connection.
In Summary:
The film did well in its original release overall as the $700k budget brought in $14.4 million in theaters over six weeks and went on to generate revenue through cable and home video for decades afterward. It was an early look at some up-and-coming actors and played well in an era of post-apocalyptic films that took the angle of asking teenage girls what they would do and building the story from there. That gives it a different flavor and feeling than a lot of other things from this era that just go straight to violence and while one may scoff at the whole shopping thing, it’s a familiar piece of a lot of stories of this type and fits in with how we’re trained as consumers in a capitalistic society. The film holds a lot of nostalgia for me but it was one that I never actively sought out to see again because I had seen it so often at a younger age thanks to cable. Revisiting here was an absolute delight as it’s certainly the best I’ve ever seen it and knowing the paths of some of these actors just makes it all the more fun. This is a seriously packed release across the board at an absolute steal of a price. It’s definitely a low-budget B-movie, but it’s a thoroughly enjoyable one through my glasses.
Features:
English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Language, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Language, English Subtitles, Audio Commentary with Actors Kelli Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart, Audio Commentary with Director Thom Eberhardt, Audio Commentary with Production Designer John Muto, Valley Girls at the End of the World: Interview with Kelli Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart, The Last Man on Earth?: Interview with Actor Robert Beltran, Curse of the Comet: Interview with Makeup Effects Creator David B. Miller, Theatrical Trailer, Galleries: Movie Stills and Behind-the-Scenes Photos
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: A+
Released By: Shout! Studios
Release Date: September 5th, 2023
MSRP: $29.99
Running Time: 95 Minutes
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
