Night of the Comet is by no means a "good" film by normal standards. It is rife with plotholes, clunky dialogue, and B-movie acting. HOWEVER, I can't help but enjoy it. It is 80s in every sense of the word and I am irrevocably drawn to it despite all of its flaws. Set in LA during a fictional comet strike, the plot revolves around sisters Samantha and Regina who must survive on their own after the comet's...well, I don't know what, but people either turned into orange dust or flesh-eating zombies. (I know you're already wondering what's not to like aout this flick). I'm sure in other hands it could be fleshed out and turned into some sort of Omega Man knock-off, but it's the corniness that makes this movie.
As I've said, the acting and story are what you'd expect from a Sci Fi Channel weekend movie. The lead actors don't put on terrible performances, but some of the lines they have to run through are hilarious in their own right. ("We can say ****, but let's substitute 'have sex' with 'get with' at every opportunity") There also isn't a whole lot of character development, and there's an entire sequence that seems utterly superfluous outside of watching Star Trek vet Robbie Beltran fight off a zombie child for ten minutes.
But I'm not watching this film for some deep artistic statement. I'm watching this film because it's simple 80s goodness in every sense of the phrase. Someone was hard at work on the synthesizer to score just about every second of the movie and I enjoyed all of it. I'm a sucker for 8-bit sound. The dress, hairstyles, arcade games, and random shopping mall montages all scream the decade they shot this thing in, and that's why I enjoy it. You won't be able to sit me down for those Sci Fi Channel weekend flicks, but tell me it's got a synthesizer soundtrack and was shot in 1984 and I'm there with a bag of popcorn.
At its heart, Night of the Comet is pure 80s flash. It may not sit well with anyone who was born at the wrong time, but for a product of the 80s and 90s, it's a nostalgia trip in the cheap seats with the bubble gum that sticks to your feet and the (you hope it's a) soda stain on tthe upholstery. I make no excuses for the cinematic quality or artistic merit of this fillm. I will say that I enjoyed every bit of it.