Thom Eberhardt’s “Night Of The Comet” is a film whose reputation is due for a serious rehabilitation. Generally–and wrongly–categorized with typical 80s teen horror films, “Comet” is in fact a smart, skillful parody of the low-budget sci-fi horror classics of the 50s, 60s and 70s–and a wry commentary on teen culture in the 1980s as well. For those familiar with the original films, the parody “clues” are all over the place–not least of which is that the early part of the film takes place in the back of LA’s classically offbeat El Rey movie theatre, which is showing low-budget B horror movies. Most of the “scary” scenes are preceded (subtly or otherwise) by the famous “red light” warning used commonly in the 60s and 70s. And the apocalyptic plot, settings and dialog, especially among the scientists, are straight out of the 50s.
On this podcast Joel and Jason discusses Night Of The Comet (1984).
You can listen to (aka stream) the podcast right now by clicking on the play button at the bottom of this post or you can view the full blog post here. They also interviewed Kelli Maroney and you can find that interview here.
This is an episode from Joel and Jason‘s Forgotten Flix podcast. On this podcast Joel and Jason discuss all about the movies YOU grew up with.
If you have some thoughts to share about this article or you’d like to discuss B movies with other B movie fans and filmmakers please visit our B Movie Nation Facebook group.
Kevin Bachelder is the host of the Saturday B Movie Reel podcast.