Rent Night of the Comet (1984)

Leg Warmers, Lip Gloss, and the Living Dead - Night of the Comet review by griggs

Night of the Comet is what happens when the apocalypse gets a perm and raids the clearance rail at TK Maxx. It’s radioactive kitsch: Valley Girls with Uzis, decomposing cops, and enough hairspray to punch a hole in the ozone layer. The plot? Who cares. It's a gloriously dumb romp that treats world-ending doom like a chance to try on leg warmers and shoot zombies in the face. Trash cinema at its most fashionable–camp, crass and completely deranged.

At times, it feels like it was co-directed by John Water and John Carpenter–half punk apocalypse, half trashy fashion shoot, with zombies loitering like bored teenagers outside Primark. But without the synths, sunglasses, stilettos or subversion, it's close but no cigar. It's definitely missing something that elevates it from pure kitsch to cult classic.

Can we please stop saying 28 Days Later invented running Zombies? Er... hello? These girls were sprinting from the undead in leg warmers twenty years earlier.