NIGHT OF THE COMET

   Film (1984). Atlantic 9000/Film Development Fund. Dir Thom Eberhardt, starring Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, Robert Beltran, Mary Woronov. Screenplay Eberhardt. 100 mins cut to 95 mins for UK release.Colour.

   This likable exploitation movie, witty throughout, opens with the light from a comet (an idea stolen from John WYNDHAM's Day of the Triffids (1951)) destroying almost everybody by turning them into red dust or, in less severe cases, cannibal zombies. Two spunky teenage girls survive, team up with a truck driver, raid department stores for fashionable clothes, destroy the evil government agency that wants to kill them for serum, do disco dances and shoot submachine guns. As one might expect from the producers of Valley Girl (1984), the women are shown as self-reliant, intelligent, unmotivated and vain.

   PN