Few post-apocalyptic movies are this playful and serene. If John Hughes made a movie with zombies and girls with guns this would be it. In the film, Reggie and Sam are two sisters with troubled suburban lives that are shaken when the passing of a meteor turns people into dust and a few others into cannibal zombies, leaving the pair alone to survive along with a guy named Hector and perhaps a couple other survivors who may or may not be friendly.
Known for being the inspiration for Buffy, Reggie is a newly young adult working at a movie theater with a sloppy boyfriend who she ends up dumping after the end of the world. Reggie is determined and independent but she's also lost in the adult world and kind of stuck in a life with no future. On the other hand, Sam is still a slobbish teenage girl with not much life experience and constantly struggles to tolerate her abusive stepmother, the young girl is a bit neglected and resorts to food to cope with her alienation. The two seem far apart at first but their bond becomes more apparent and stronger as the film goes on since we get to explore their relationship a bit more.
Once the sky turns red and the monsters are unleashed the movie becomes truly alive, a series of strange misadventures puts our teen heroines into peril and distress but don't worry because the film never goes fully gory or violent, it has a carefree and juvenile spirit throughout. The girls talk about their love life, boys, fashion, sisterly things and about their future in this new solitary and boyless life, even fighting over the only guy there is. It all fits into the valley girl stereotype but manages to become funny and even semi-ironic when put against this backdrop, developing the characters and adding to the overall comedic tone of the flick.
A series of enjoyable humorous action-horror movie tropes follows, scientists kidnap the girls and they find a couple of little kids who also survived but the doctors and researchers turn out to have inmoral plans for the youngsters and the girls fight back.
Night of the Comet is sort of a pivotal moment for the young heroine trope, the protagonists are not damsels in distress or grown womanly badasses, these girls are just a couple of previously stereotyped girls that transcend this genericness by the subversive writing and likable performances that make them real and familiar teens in a extraordinary situation that puts them to the test. Having said that, it is dated at some points and the male of the trio has to do the heavy lifting mostly.
Other than that, there's not much to this little silly movie other than cheesy 80's lowkey genre playfulness with a girly flavor. If you can enjoy girls in retro outfits firing machine guns at zombies or a shopping montage while Girls Just Want to Have Fun is playing, then this one is probably for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment