IMDb runtime 1 hour and 35 minutes, is rated a miserable 6.5 by 15020 cinemitizens.
Genre: Sy Fy. Horror. Comedy. Fun.
Verdict: The search for intelligent life on Earth ends in the San Bernardino Valley.
Once every sixty-five million years a big red comet passes close by Earth. Get it? Last time it called, dinosaurs exi(s)ted.
It is Christmas Eve and everyone wants to see the red comet, being all Republicans they have no knowledge …. of extinction events or anything else. Everyone who can, stands outside to watch the comet fly-by. The red light shines and life is eradicated. Anyone exposed to the comet’s red glare turns to calcium dust. An improvement for the moral majority.
Some who were partly sheltered slowly turned into Pat Robertson zombies. A few who happened to spend the relevant hours in a tightly sealed, steel-lined room are uncontaminated. That latter number includes theatre projectionists, quiz show participants, survivalists, garden gnomes brought into sheds at night, truck drivers sleeping in the back, and …
Two Valley girl sisters survive and want to keep doing so. They have plenty of training from soldier dad, who is away fighting Sandanistas ‘in Honduras.’ Hey, don’t blame me, that is what is said. Apologies to everyone in Honduras but maybe dad was on R and R there.
In their search for life, they hear a radio station DJ broadcasting, so they go to the station. There they find a tape on a loop. The DJ taped the graveyard shift program in the afternoon and went home. He might have survived had he been in the airtight station booth. That same tape also lured Commander Chakotay. They team up, a little. Not enough, cried the fraternity brothers.
The girls show a few zombies some moves and break into NRA headquarters for some heavy weapons. Thus prepared, they head to the mall. The fashion parade cum shopping spree is great fun until the zombies come to the party which disintegrates into an NRA shooting spree. The fraternity brothers thought they recognised a couple of Sigs among them.
Just when it seems things cannot get any worse – Remember ‘Deer Hunter’ (1978) – they do. They are rescued by a crack team of GOVERNMENT scientists. Much relief… is short-lived. All those capital letters mean trouble ahead.
The scientists are more interested in…. [spoiler].
However Commander Chakotay comes to the rescue, and the girls again put their dad-training to good use. The fraternity brothers chortled when the lab assistants were tied up with the Santa Claus sign.
But best of all is the finale.
While our gang is sequestered in the desert bunker a cleansing rain falls and washes away the killer red dust and all the little calciums. A new dawn rises. After blowing up, up, and away the mad and bad scientists, aided by one of scientists who retains a conscience despite years of McKinsey-speak, our crew return to Lost Angeles….to go shopping in Eden Mall.
Chakotay and Big Hair look married, and are accompanied by the two tweenagers they rescued from the clutches of the lab assistants, they make a family. Many selfies are taken with a Polaroid. (Remember them?)
They dance down some steps to the street and stand at a crosswalk waiting for the light to turn green so that they may cross. No spoiler. But the next few minutes are worth the price of admission. Delicious and delightful.
Impossible not to like.
Thank you Thom Eberhardt, writer and director.
It is energetic, full of tributes to other, better movies; fast and furious; has some ripper one-liners, the mandatory 1980s fashions, big hair, big teeth, and Mac30s. Loved it when the gal pals compliment each other on their rigs in between slamming would be zombies to the ground and cutting others in half with a hail of sound effects.
Commander Chakotay breaks two of the barriers to Sy Fy, being Latindio. Get it? And one of the tweenagers might be Sansei plus. It is rare for Sy Fy to be anything but white-bread.
The empty street scenes in Lost Angeles were shot on Christmas Day and then scrubbed, say the reviewers.
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