ThoughtPusher – Bitch Flicks

‘The Fog’: 5 Women, an Environmental Crisis, and No Forecast of Friendship

Before watching the movie with a more critical lens, I reminisced that these strong female characters drove the community response to crisis as they began to interact and even came to depend on each other. … It seems like ‘The Fog’ exposes the idea that strong women can’t have any meaningful relationships that might endure and even help them survive and understand themselves better through tough times.

This guest post by ThoughtPusher appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s. | Spoilers ahead.

When I saw the theme for this month, I assumed John Hughes and cult-favorites with coming-of-age individuality would be well-covered territory; so as I considered topics that might extend beyond teen angst and stellar soundtracks, I started thinking about friendship. Honing in on my beloved 80s-era references, I would like to say that I immediately jumped into an ocean of examples of empowering female friendships such as the spot-on interpretation of The Golden Girls that Megan Kearns published awhile ago. But instead, I thought of a horror movie that stood out to me as presenting more women than men — and three really different kinds of women — who come together to survive an onslaught of vengeful ghosts.

Before watching the movie with a more critical lens, I reminisced that these strong female characters drove the community response to crisis as they began to interact and even came to depend on each other. But now in retrospect, I see that they remain isolated from each other and do not develop any mutually fulfilling relationships like the sense of family in my nostalgic memory of The Golden Girls household. I originally thought this month’s theme would provide an opportunity to examine the genesis of female friendships through crisis. But upon further examination, these characters only come together in a geographic sense rather than develop significant strength through the social bonds of supporting each other. And with that, I welcome you back to the early scream-queen transition into the 80s in the John Carpenter classic The Fog (1980).

The film opens with John Houseman telling a campfire story about the intentional shipwreck of colony settlers with leprosy and their vengeful ghosts who return with the fog to search for the six people who conspired to destroy them and steal their gold. With the ghost story told, Carpenter progressively introduces three kinds of women — literally progressing from the first to the second to the third, cut back to one, to two, to three — for the first half of the movie until their storylines start to converge.

Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau) speaks from her lighthouse radio booth “on top of the world,” wishing the town of Antonio Bay a happy 100th anniversary, and questioning the foreboding weather forecast since she sees a great view of clear skies. It’s significant that this introduction to her character indicates her presence at all of the town locations in establishing shots during her broadcast, rather than any camera shots of her talking into the mic. A few fishermen drinking on a ship in the bay also question the reported fog bank as they discuss the voice on the radio, and one is surprised to find out that another once met her at a little league game. From the outset, one star of the film is more a presence in voice than body.

Stevie is the most basic female archetype: a Mother to young son Andy (Ty Mitchell) and later to the community. As a local radio broadcaster who at one point identifies herself as Antonio Bay’s “nightlight,” she is the steady voice that informs the town of what is happening and what they should do — quite like many of us hear that inherited parental voice in the back of our heads providing a stream of thoughts, advice, and occasional criticism. There are almost as many shots in the movie of different radios while Stevie’s broadcasting as there are of her embodied agency in the booth. There’s no father in the picture (well, not in the story, although we see a few pictures of a happy family presumably with a young Andy); so Andy’s babysitter, Mrs. Kobritz (Regina Waldon), fills in at home when Stevie is at work. As the Surrogate-Mother, she’s the physically present caretaker for Andy in the absence of his professional mom. In fact, both women ask Andy at different times about the other, so it doesn’t seem like the maternal mind and body interact except through the son.

Further, in an amazingly strange representation of motherhood, Stevie and Andy share one scene together that is not mediated by either the radio or phone when Andy wakes up his mom after finding a gold coin that turned into a plank of wood from the crashed ghost ship on the beach. They are in the same bedroom set, but the entire conversation is edited shot-reverse-shot conversational style so that they don’t share any eye lines. Even in the one clear two-shot, Stevie has yet to open her eyes as she rises from bed with Andy talking excitedly in the background. In this entire scene, they don’t even touch! Not a hug, not a pulling up of the jacket zipper, not even a tussle of Andy’s hair as the kid goes about his day searching the shoreline for washed-up treasure. In The Fog, Stevie becomes a completely isolated and disembodied Mother, especially since all of the other characters look at radios to an objectified Voice rather than an embodied woman.

During the night of glowing ghost-fueled fog, and after she learns it’s homicidal, Stevie watches it approach her house in the distance. On the air, she announces: “My son is trapped by the fog. Andy, get out of the house! Run!” She begs for someone to help as she watches the fog bank invade her dockside home. Shortly thereafter, the fog moves away and, without knowing if anyone heard her call, Stevie apologizes to her son in a disturbingly unmotherly way: “Andy, I don’t even know if you can hear me. I’m sorry that I didn’t come for you… that I wasn’t there.” She can’t leave her post since she has responsibilities to her job and the listening audience in town? I mean, what the fuck?! She’s standing in her booth asking her kid to understand because, stifling of tears (and sounding more like she’s either a ghost to him or standing on his grave), “I have to stay here.” Then Stevie swallows her fear or pain or what should be an emotional transition from a son’s Mother to a community’s Voice and she begins objectively reporting the movement of the fog through town. Street by street, she describes locations in a distanced public-broadcasting tone. She alerts her listeners to seek shelter and “stay away from the fog.” For those who can get out of town, she announces the changing clear path to get to the old church. Amazingly(ish), the surviving primary characters all gather there for a showdown with the fog-ghosts.

When Stevie apologizes to Andy, she says goodbye and sheds her working mother identity for a civic-minded character, where the good of the community takes precedence over familial obligations. This is certainly character development, but I can’t shake the abruptness of this sudden shift from family to community protection — it’s not like she’s a cop or other public official. Yet her transmission becomes the stationary lighthouse perspective as it blares through the fog and alerts the community about the dangerous environmental threat and how to reach safety. Strangely, according to the setting of the lighthouse, Stevie does not have a superior perspective of the town, but much more a lateral cliff-side view; so there is no implied omniscience but only relational distance from the danger observed through the night with limited ability to know if her message is being heard by anyone, including the son who may or may not have been slaughtered. By the end of the film, Stevie transitions from Mother to a fully disembodied Voice. But more to come on that shipwreck of character…

Elsewhere in the universe of strong women illuminated by the supernatural fog, Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis) hitches a ride with Nick Castle (Tom Atkins) even though he says he’s on his way to “the other side of town.” Sure she probably could have walked that distance in an hour, but why not jump into his truck, directly ask if he’s weird, and then roll to his house after sharing a scare when the truck windows mysteriously smash in. Elizabeth and Nick have sex, so she is neither the archetypal Whore required by The Cabin in the Woods standards nor hindered by the “sex equals death” rule of Scream. Elizabeth enters the film as a drifter, hitchhiking her way to Vancouver when Nick drives by in his pick-up. She then stays attached to Nick (quite literally for much of their screen time outside of the truck) during the ensuing events — so I’m going with the double-meaning characterization of Hitcher for her.

In the scenes leading up to the nighttime crisis, Carpenter posits a physical relation between the Hitcher and Andy which appeals to an initial shared innocence. As Nick tells Elizabeth the scary story of his father’s supernatural encounter at sea, she pulls her legs in to hold them in a self-comforting embrace. Andy maintains a similar posture as he fearfully sits on his bed while the invading ghosts start to break into his room.

At a point of character development beyond an innocent drifter, Elizabeth is in the truck with Nick when Stevie yells out commands to her son to leave and run away from the fog. As Stevie pleads for help from listeners, Elizabeth and Nick heed the panicked Mother-Voice and rescue Andy. Where Stevie drops out of the Mother role (and the Surrogate has already been murdered in ghostly revenge), the Hitcher picks up the maternal responsibility. In various scary moments after the rescue, Elizabeth breaks away from her distressed damsel reactions of screaming and reaching for Nick. Instead, she holds Andy to her body in a protective frontal embrace to shield him physically in a way that the Mother and the grandmotherly Surrogate did not — they both told him to run for cover and the Hitcher actually provides him cover.

Elizabeth ventures into the uncharted waters of Motherhood by grasping a child; she’s now Hitched to a son rather than a lover. And for all we know, she might even become Andy’s Mother; because by the end of the movie, Stevie broadcasts a “keep watching the skies” kind of warning to all those in town and at sea, before she does any damn thing to try to find out if her own son lived through the night! There’s no mention of “I hope to see you again” or “meet me at the dock,” much less giving the impression that her recently ghost-hook-stabbed shoulder might hurt. This is the shipwreck of the Mother: Stevie moves on from the (possible) loss of her son and becomes the fully disembodied Mother-Voice for the community.

Thus Carpenter distinguishes different kinds of Mother characters that remain severed, even if their narratives overlap: a Mother loses touch with her son and his Surrogate as she becomes the town’s Mother-Voice who tries to explain the best route to survival to listeners, including a drifter who falls into bed with a man and stays attached to him through danger until she becomes a Mother/Surrogate to an abandoned child. Sure, the Hitcher becomes the savior of the Mother-Voice’s son; but she answers the on-air pleas unbeknownst to the Mother herself. There is no interaction between them. The woman who begins in the maternal role acts for the community so she is unable to save her own child from danger while a stranger passing through town can. The woman who fills the carefree Hitcher role is embroiled in the strange happenings of the cursed town and answers the call to save a child in need. However, Elizabeth takes on that burden without any mutual involvement with Stevie, and both women extend their characters beyond their initial tropes without even a chance meeting or conversation.

Finally, the last of The Fog‘s three lead women characters, the ever-talented Janet Leigh portrays civic leader Kathy Williams. She’s in the stressful waning hours of planning the town’s centennial celebration and statue dedication. She has an aide, Sandy (Nancy Loomis), whom she depends on, talks to, and thus provides Bechdel checkmarks next to all three boxes. But with that criteria fulfilled, Sandy plays the role of Assistant to Mrs. Williams, so even the personal discussions between them seem like the kinds of conversations that are the norm between close coworkers rather than friends. Yet Mrs. Williams consistently maintains a community-focus. Before leaving a meeting with the Priest (Hal Holbrook) who is troubled by the recent revelation of the town’s foundation on the demise of the ghastly (and now ghostly) lepers, Mrs. Williams wants to ensure he’s okay and offers to send for the doctor. Sandy indicates the time and implies their need to get on with their agenda, but Mrs. Williams is the epitome of the Civic Leader: she really cares about others, despite Sandy pointing at her watch to stress the importance of wasting time during a busy day.

Further establishing herself as Civic Leader, the power goes out and the crowd’s candles are already lit for the dedication ceremony, so Mrs. Williams calmly announces over the now-dead microphone: “We should all proceed over to the statue.” The patrons move through in a calm and orderly fashion, and Mrs. Williams wants everyone to be able to participate and then leave the ceremony safely. Unlike Stevie’s panicked-Mother freak-out session directing Andy to get out of the house, Mrs. Williams focuses on civic responsibilities distinct from her personal upheaval. Carpenter makes use of a really effective long take to focus on Mrs. Williams’ emotional processing of a personal crisis in the midst of her civic responsibilities, but she lives this moment isolated in a crowded frame. After the Sheriff leaves the shot, Sandy tries to comfort her; but Mrs. Williams only brings her eyes to Sandy’s hand on her arm. When she finally meets Sandy’s eye line, she has shifted the topic from personal loss to an obligation to keep it together for the ceremony. She dabs her eyes and reestablishes her firm, professional tone: “We can’t have the chairlady of the birthday celebration in tears, can we?”

As the two community-centric women leave the shot, the camera backtracks through the narrow bar with Nick to reveal that Elizabeth has been there the entire time. Sure, she’s not a member of this community and may not know Mrs. Williams’ role or identity beyond this emotional outburst, but she doesn’t say or do anything? Really?? Granted, Jamie Lee Curtis is in character at the time, and demonstrates her chops alongside the set watching her mom (Janet Leigh) cry — take after take for the dozen or so attempts to get this long tracking shot right — and not reacting like a daughter in the vicinity of her own mom’s gut-wrenching performance. But wouldn’t someone who eventually heeds a distress call to rescue a child in danger also be someone who would find a way to try to comfort someone going through a personal crisis?

This one long tracking shot seems to finally rest on a two-shot of Nick sidling up to the bar next to Elizabeth, but then there’s a broadcasting radio on the back shelf of the bar. Stevie’s updates grab Nick’s attention, and he goes to the payphone to make contact with the Voice. This is the first scene where we get a sense that the three primary women in the movie are actually in the same movie, and it is when none of them share a shot or directly speak to either of the others.

Stevie’s awareness is established as one of independent authority, and her relationship to the other female characters are sequentially constructed in the editing room. Once the stage is set, Carpenter cuts through the gradually overlapping events of these women in an orderly fashion. Eventually, we reach the climactic crisis: Surrogate murdered, the Hitcher and Civic Leader along with the Assistant come together in obedience to the supreme Voice of the Mother (along with a motherless son wandering around with a local guy who happens to be able to engage directly with all the women) in the church to hold off the invading ghosts while the local Priest tries to break the curse his grandfather helped catalyze. But come on, what the fuck is going on here? Even in the barricaded confines of the church with leper-ghost arms swiping into the windows, Elizabeth and Mrs. Williams do not speak to each other or even seem to acknowledge the other’s existence. They are in survival mode against invading ghosts of a cursed past! By no means do I need (or frankly even want) a gushy-emotional “wind beneath my wings” kind of friendship to be imposed on these strangers who met about an hour ago in narrative time, but not even a damn glance of mutual recognition? And when they leave the church as a successful kick-ass team of survivors, all the embodied primaries stand gazing at the dissipating fog as if they’ve become distinct statues memorializing fierce independence.

Would it end the whole narrative world if we got to see these women battle vengeful ghosts in close quarters and leave the arena with a celebratory fist-bump, or a relieved hug, or even a little wink or smirk in a shared eye line?! Much less if they could walk away from the destruction as they catch up on what’s been going on aside from the apocalypse. (So, yeah, maybe the Buffy-Willow friendship is more to my taste; but seriously…) These are all strong women; all survivors of a shared catastrophe, all indirectly related protectors, yet all isolated identities who remain without equal, friendless.

It seems like The Fog exposes the idea that strong women can’t have any meaningful relationships that might endure and even help them survive and understand themselves better through tough times. The whole foundation for mutual recognition in friendship (at least in a classic Aristotelian sense) would be to have a reflection in peers to better understand themselves as individuals. Instead, we’re presented with dynamic women cut off from those who should have the most impact on their lives, and they apparently know it. For instance, Stevie talks to the weatherman who calls to report movement of the fog bank rolling against the wind, and they seem to have a cordial professional relationship until we see how easily she deflects his advances. He asks her to dinner, but with a humorous revelation she lets him down: “My idea of perfection is a voice on the phone.” Maybe this only expresses Stevie’s independence from a conventional relationship, but her movement toward disembodied-Voice isolation is already established in her sole on-screen encounter with her son. When he wakes her the morning of the ghost ship plank washing ashore, she says to him in a rather put-off tired voice: “I love you… but sometimes you’re a real pain.” This attitude (along with not sharing an eye line with her son in that whole mess) distances Stevie from the physical relational expectations of a Mother.

A similar kind of distance is established by Mrs. Williams with her Assistant. Sandy supports Mrs. Williams throughout the hectic day and into the crisis, but even this relationship stays fairly hierarchical as a professional arrangement. We can assume that a Civic Leader would have an Assistant in planning and executing community activities, but Mrs. Williams expresses a playful exasperation with Sandy, calling her “a little annoying” but right about leaving the public ceremony to deal with personal loss — as if those two ways of existing must remain distinct. As the supernatural events unfold, even though Elizabeth stays attached to Nick, she keeps reiterating her intention of leaving town to get to Vancouver. Each of these women thus have relational attachments in their lives, but no sign of friendship that matters beyond practical concerns. What the fuck does that tell us about ladies of the 80s? Women can be strong as individual types and even experience dynamic growth, but they don’t interact as equals.

Nerd Alert: In a social satire published in the previous century’s 80s, fog was referenced as something that could illuminate identity and dictate proper social relations. In Edwin A. Abbott’s classic novella, Flatland, the upper-class Art of Sight Recognition is enhanced by Fog, an environmental condition which augments a finer quality of depth perception in two-dimensional reality. Fog becomes a superior blessing in the landscape of Flatland because it entails the possibility of seeing acceptable interpretations of social status that remain hidden from clear perception. Just as visual perception in Flatland is enhanced by Fog, Carpenter distinguishes these female identities in their encounters with the glowing fog and its ghostly apparitions. But the undeveloped idea latent in Abbott’s world — whether or not the inferences based on Fog-enhanced perception are appropriate to determine the value of an encountered subject within the preconceived social hierarchy — becomes an issue of social interpretation of ladies of the 1980s.

Even if we get a sense of strong women capable of being independent, protecting children, or maintaining civic-mindedness; these are distinct personal identities which each impose their own proper social relations (or absence thereof). We do not witness any overlap within individuals or immediacy of female friendship. This is even more surprising considering the screenplay was co-written by Debra Hill. Each female trope becomes a species in itself, incomparable to other kinds of women and apparently cut off from previous character identities, such as Stevie shedding the Mother role for community-Voice role and not forging a more complex union of the two. The Fog illuminates the boundaries of different types of women. To strong women out there on an individual level: Sure you can be a good mother, a free spirit, or a community leader; but those things don’t really all go together. And to strong women out there on a social level: Sure you can be individuals and even wear different hats when it comes to character development, but you and other kinds of women are just ships blindly passing through a foggy bay with access only to indirect communication — mediated by technology, hierarchical relations, or some local guy like Nick.

Through The Fog, we see the emergence of these starring women — town-defending, child-protecting, ghost-fighting women — who all develop beyond their initial molds. Yet they don’t seem to have any potential to build relationships or mutual respect for each other across those boundaries. Carpenter edits a vision of three distinct kinds of women of the early 80s — roles which can be broadened for potential character development, but remain distinct enough to offer only indirect support from other women. I can only imagine how much these different women would benefit from meaningful interactions with each other through this crisis. But I’m left merely to speculate on the respect and support that friendship could provide to each of these completely different personalities… like imagining a sudden onslaught of vengeful ghosts invading The Golden Girls’ household. Oooh, I think I just got a totally wicked crossover sequel idea!

In retrospect, what The Fog reveals is a glimpse of some really strong ladies of the 80s; but it falls short of giving us any clear view of what strong women can be, do, and become together.

ThoughtPusher might live somewhere near you (especially if you have a neighbor who blasts New Order or Tears for Fears records most nights), but certainly is a cinephile who has no interest in being followed or asking to be liked, unless it’s for access to an embarrassingly extensive VHS collection.

Kelly Reichardt’s ‘Wendy and Lucy’: Heartbreak in a Panning Shot

Through the course of the film, Kelly Reichardt’s pacing is so deliberate that even the most ordinary moments seem intensely significant. Reichardt’s framing traps Wendy in shots as much as her broken-down car and lack of money trap her in the town.

This guest post written by ThoughtPusher appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors. Spoilers ahead.

A version of this post previously appeared at Bright Lights Film Journal. It now celebrates the recent release of Certain Women, a series of vignettes set in small-town Montana directed by Kelly Reichardt and starring Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, and Laura Dern.

The lateral pan 50 minutes into Wendy and Lucy kills me. The 2008 movie follows a simple enough story: girl and dog travel through a train-yard town, girl’s car breaks down, girl loses dog, girl finds dog in a better situation, girl leaves alone on a freight train. It is one in a series of stories from the writer/director about someone “passing through.” Through the course of the film, Kelly Reichardt’s pacing is so deliberate that even the most ordinary moments seem intensely significant. Reichardt’s framing traps Wendy in shots as much as her broken-down car and lack of money trap her in the town. But I cannot escape the lingering grasp of that pan. It just breaks my heart every time I see it.

Having lost her dog during a day-long stint in the local police precinct for shoplifting food, Wendy begins a search for Lucy who was left tied to the bike rack outside of the grocery store. Wendy tapes an “I’m lost” flyer with Lucy’s picture and description to a storefront window and walks away, but her movement doesn’t draw the camera’s gaze. All I see is the scene Wendy leaves behind: a soda machine and passing cars reflected in the glass that now holds the symbol of a tragic loss, simultaneously the symbol of a hopeful return. Then the camera starts to shift. Slowly. Too slowly. Is Lucy in the alley? Is there something written on that wall which seems to take minutes to glide over? What draws the camera’s gaze since it didn’t swish to keep up with Wendy when she walked away? Where is the camera taking me and where is this story going?

The distance traveled in that pan seems infinite: from the window, then along the building’s wall, and finally around the corner to see Wendy walking toward a fenced-off field (at which point she beckons to Lucy in a voice much smaller than Michelle Williams’ presence). In order to cover the apparently infinite space, that pan seems to last an eternity. Actually, it takes only a few seconds to cover a short distance, and the pan is only one among many employed in the film; but damn if it doesn’t crush me in a way no mere pan should.

A conventional pan should be a horizontal pivot of the camera which reveals a lateral view of scenery or action, particularly by following a moving subject. But Reichardt’s pan breaks the mold and imposes narrative significance to a cursory moment in Wendy’s story. The solitary pivot point of the pan doesn’t give me a stationary place of reference to make sense of the movement, and what is revealed in the course of the pan is not an environmental relationship between the storefront and Wendy. Rather, the pan shows me that I am limited in who I can see, what I can know, and where I can go. I’m just as bound to the isolation and desperation of a search without a foreseeable end as Wendy is as she calls out yet again and wonders about Lucy’s fate. (And I begin to wonder if Reichardt is telling a story about a drifter or documenting the reality of moving from film to film without a view as to her own professional future. As sad as that prospect seems, I reenter the film and think about the impact of that pan.)

The connection between Wendy and Lucy is severed, so even the story’s focal point seems lost. Wendy worries about Lucy and puts every effort into finding her, only to leave her once she is found. Wendy’s impoverished situation makes each of the choices she faces seem binary. Either she loses some of the limited money she has or she tries to steal food. Either she reclaims Lucy or she leaves her in a stable home. Either she moves forward or backward. Unlike so many other road movies, Wendy never feels the freedom of open possibilities. She is moving on a track from point A to point B, and she does not diverge from a determined path. Her journey is like that pan, slowly moving from one place to another, and whatever she experiences is just another point on a line that must be traveled in order to reach the destination.

I think the pan itself actually makes me feel the grief that follows the loss of a friend. On the surface, it is devoid of meaningful content; but maybe the effect is supposed to underscore the contextual space that opens for Wendy in a life without Lucy and foreshadow Wendy’s solitary departure from the town. The steady movement of that pan etches a line across the horizon of possibilities within the film: there is no freedom experienced in this traveler’s tale since Wendy is shackled by financial and social limitations as she journeys across the country. The function of that pan in some way binds me to Wendy as I eventually catch up to her, but the camera lacks any purpose that extends beyond finding a familiar character to latch onto. It is as if the camera’s gaze merely seeks a place to rest from this unending unknown, and that might be Wendy’s true quest in the film.

Thus attached to that pan, my motivation for attentive analysis is lost, as absent as Lucy from Wendy’s field of view. I don’t know where to find meaning and instead I find myself on shaky ground, if any at all, as if no tripod could support the weight of interpretation. The delay leading up to that pan makes the camera seem lethargic, imposing its own sigh in the midst of a sad situation. During that pan, the camera doesn’t just pivot: it floats from the flyer’s symbol of a search to the distraught searcher, both of which are disconnected from the object of the search; and I am left hanging like the flyer, one copy from a stack just like it, posted alongside other flyers for other lost dogs. Stripped of conventional purposes such as establishing a relationship to other characters or demonstrating the vastness of the environment, that pan makes me hover and drift. I am a ghost doomed to haunt the Oregon landscape, trapped alongside Wendy in this lost world.

Wendy’s ordeal in the film is comprised of just a few days in a longer journey; but that short time slowly develops into systemic uncertainty with increasingly intense vulnerability to invasions by unknown others and explores the bitter circumstances involved in negotiating the mundane details of a marginalized life. In the middle of the film, that pan evokes a sense of alienation and suggests Wendy’s lonely departure alongside an empty space. By the end of the film, Wendy has no safety net, no social network, no clarity of purpose… just like me with that pan. A life without significant attachments, an inability to escape the trappings of necessity, the meandering that accompanies an indefinite future: all conveyed painstakingly in a simple pan, an occasion fit for heartbreak.

ThoughtPusher might live somewhere near you (especially if you have a neighbor who blasts New Order or Tears for Fears most nights), but certainly is a cinephile who has no interest in being followed or asking to be liked.

Totally Radical Girls and the Bitchin’ Burden of Civilization

I mean, she doesn’t wrap her arms around some guy’s waist to hold on for the ride of her life or even jump onto a Vespa or something weak. Nope, she’s a zombie-fightin’ shoulder-padded biker who escapes danger on her own and looks just as feathery-haired good when she gets to her destination as when she put down her attacker in the alley (although this was the early 80s while CFCs were being phased out, so big hair treated with a half-bottle of AquaNet always had some hold).

This guest post by ThoughtPusher appears as part of our theme week on Dystopias.

Uh, like, 30 years ago or something, I was totally into a valley girl end-of-the-world scenario. Even! That’s like exactly what’s going on in Night of the Comet (so 1984) when this total bummer of an apocalypse happens on account of a comet that comes back after a wicked long time, the same one that like ended the dinosaurs and stuff, and so it totally wrecks the world just when these two teenage sisters were like about to grow up and get out from the bogus control their two-timing stepmom.

I remember loving Thom Eberhardt’s 1984 cult classic when I was younger, so I wanted to revisit it in all its glorious 80s post-apocalyptic deserted-downtown-L.A. splendor for this month’s theme week. But then I got a little nervous. (Stephanie Rogers just wrecked my assumption of great 80s movies with her dead-on reevaluation of the now-horrifying themes and language in Sixteen Candles, released in the same year as this flick.) Holy crap, what if my nostalgic adoration was misplaced and this killer zombie flick was really a social or moral nightmare to behold? Well, I watched it again, jaw and most muscles clenched, ready to suffer the pain of shattered dreams… but it really turned out to be OK-ish. Some cringe-worthiness, but not in the way I expected…

So this apocalypse deal could have been righteous. Like, fer sure. Especially for girls like Reg and Sam who got some kind of totally tubular elite kick-ass training from their military dad who wanted sons and treated them like they could grow up into Green Berets or something but then motored to fight some war when they got old enough to want to do girl things.

Regina (Catherine Mary Stewart) and her younger sister Samantha (Kelli Maroney) are a couple of valley girls who survive the initial wave of cosmic radiation emitted from the rare comet’s tail. They are left nearly alone to cope with a zombie apocalypse in downtown L.A. Their mom split after their dad came back from Vietnam, so they are used to taking care of themselves. Their dad did give them some training, though. As indicated by their male nicknames, it looks like their father would have been more interested in having sons. He trained them in weapons and hand-to-hand, but Reg reports that it became painfully obvious around sixth or seventh grade that they wouldn’t be go to Ranger school, so he went off to serve in more wars and conflicts. Even though he’s gone, he has prepared them to survive this kind of world.

Eberhardt’s vision for this dystopian landscape is empty, isolated, and eerily red, but still fully stocked with useful stuff like clothes and cars and radio stations. Yet these girls have been abandoned by both of their parents. Perhaps because of that, they stick together throughout the movie, and even get involved with a guy who has to check in on his mother (so he also doesn’t abandon his family or his new friends) and two kids who they essentially take in as niece and nephew to their little survivor clan.

As one house in a neighborhood party, Sam is pissed that her step-mom, Doris, has ordered her to serve chips and dip. This is just one of about a gazillion parties going on, not to mention a New Year’s Eve vibe on TV with handwritten posters and couples kissing in overcrowded public venues. Sam scoffs at Doris’s overly friendly relationship with a feelsy neighbor guy and sasses her way to calling Doris an asshole, which brings an immediate slap to Sam’s face. Sam slaps her in response, but then Doris wigs out and socks Sam so hard she tumbles over the couch. Like, some ditz can just deck a step-kid she’s supposed to take care of?! Doris sucks, so Sam could be all like, “What’s your damage?” and “Take a chill pill!” but she just jets without a place to go, so she spends the night in the lawn storage shed. That totally barfs me out, but I guess we’ve all gotten “shack” in MASH sometimes.

So the whole world parties in anticipation of this super-rare comet’s passage close to the atmosphere, except a few wary scientists who lock themselves in an underground bunker. Reg calls home and colludes with Sam (who is upholding a sisterly duty but completely unconvincing while doing it) to try to sell a “science trip” to the observatory as a reason to stay out all night. Doris lays out the situation: while the Major is away, she’s in charge. She doesn’t care what the girls do, but doesn’t want to be held responsible in case their dad survives and actually returns home. But as this scene plays out, the public corporal punishment of a teenage girl with a bad attitude seems acceptable.

This might be the most disturbing scene in the movie, even though it is before the apocalyptic crisis or the zombie attacks or the ensuing power-struggles. It just seems so normal, so acceptable, so parental for Doris to punch Sam across the room. There are even neighbors in the doorway who glance over during the domestic altercation but do nothing other than continue their conversation. The dystopian landscape of this horror movie turns out to be the contemporary social conventions and what is deemed permissible in the treatment of children. Of course there are parties everywhere. Of course a few scientists and military men take precautions and later bring unexposed survivors (including kids) back to their bunker to use them for their physical production of healthy blood. But aside from the anticipated decadence and violence and darker side of humanity, this pre-comet event is what takes my breath away for a moment as the corners of my eyes cringe at the abrupt violence. Sam’s encounter with Doris and her behavior during her conversation with Reg the next morning run the gamut of trauma reactions: she is shocked, then saddened, then runs away, then tries to conceal the bruising with makeup, then jokes about it, then angry enough to tell her dad and try to get Doris out of their lives. (But she doesn’t get quite to that stage of the process until Reg comes home the next morning…)

After playing an arcade game for a while and thinking that her projectionist pseudo-boyfriend has ditched her, Reg goes outside and gets locked out of the dive theater. She spazzes out when she runs into this fugly zombie creepazoid in the alley who looks like he could be a Garbage Pail Kid. He’s scabby and oozy and should totally bag his face. Gag me with a spoon! But Reg fights him off and hops on Larry’s motorcycle to book it home. Nobody is around but the stuff from the party is still in the street along with clothes and grosser-than-gross red dust, so she looks for Sam to find out what’s up.

Reg has some hand-to-hand skills (not to mention her later comment that “the mac-10 submachine gun was practically designed for housewives”), so she survives the attack. But the thing that always stood out to me about this was the nonchalance of her ability to hop onto a motorcycle and drive off. Although Eberhardt presents an strangely empty L.A., most post-apocalyptic cities are represented as worlds where abandoned vehicles clutter the roads; if you want to travel from place to place with ease, you should ride a bike… it’s a part of a lot of movies in the genre, but that just seems like a survival skill that most teenage girls lack in traditional portrayals. I mean, she doesn’t wrap her arms around some guy’s waist to hold on for the ride of her life or even jump onto a Vespa or something weak. Nope, she’s a zombie-fightin’ shoulder-padded biker who escapes danger on her own and looks just as feathery-haired good when she gets to her destination as when she put down her attacker in the alley (although this was the early 80s while CFCs were being phased out, so big hair treated with a half-bottle of AquaNet always had some hold). Reg initiates the era of a fashionable, kick-ass heroine with a sharp wit and massive protective instincts. (Can anyone say Buffy, or Zoë, or Buffyverse, or River, or Echo, or any other female leads in forthcoming Joss Whedon projects?) Even later in the movie, Reg sees Sam after being told that she was dead; and their conversation shifts quickly from relieved surprise to “Hey, that’s a great outfit!” / “Thanks. Is that guy in the hallway dead?” It seems to foreshadow the content and mood of the closing sequences of most Buffy episodes.

Reg tries to tell Sam that there is something messed up with the world, but Sam applies some makeup in the mirror to cover up the bruise from the night before. (Dude! It’s all kinds of “I walked into a door again” and stuff.) Instead of dealing with what Reg is saying, Sam carries her boom box from room to room, which is what gives them the idea to go to the local radio station ‘cause the dj’s counting down the weekly top twenty, so he might have the 411 on what happened the night before since he does the news and stuff. When they get to the station, it’s like all automated but a guy with a gun comes at the girls to see if they’re still human. Hector is this trucker just passing through town, but he had the same idea about maybe somebody being at the station. Sam finds the controls and gets to be the new dj, which is totally rad.

(OK, so I get that it’s a plot point to go to the broadcasting source, but having a radio station setting in the course of the movie was so 80s. [sigh…] God I miss 80s movie soundtracks.)

When Hector gets the drop on the girls at the radio station, Reg tries to negotiate Sam’s release. She is the big sister and is going to take care of Sam. But it gets fun when Sam starts broadcasting, choosing what songs to play and talking over them to any audience that might be listening. She proclaims herself to be one-third owner of the station, and then begins changing the world order: all finals are cancelled, and the new drinking age is 10… with ID. She gets a call on the “hit line” and loses the connection, but the broadcast continues and the scientists in the desert compound deduce that the normalcy of the radio station will keep the small group there long enough to retrieve them. After all, the not-so-smart scientists left the vents open in their bunker, so they were partially exposed to the comet’s radiation and they are slowly turning into zombies. (The scientists in this little sci-fi story are not the knowledgeable crowd usually portrayed.)

During a bad dream, Sam is driving and defending herself from the fault of losing the connection with the scientists when she exclaims, “I’m not the phone company… nobody’s the phone company anymore!” She recognizes that no one is responsible for the phone lines, but she also starts to freak out when a cop pulls her over. She doesn’t have her license, so she’s sure she will be in trouble. This is all part of a dream (within a dream to boot), but it demonstrates the inherent assumption of civil authority over personal behavior. And it’s far from Eberhardt’s only reference to traffic violations and rules of the road.

Hector announces that he has to go to San Diego in the morning, and Reg wonders why. Even though Hector has a mother and sister and friends there, she assumes they’re gone. After a bit of getting-to-know-you personal time, Hector jokes, “What will you give me if I come back?” Reg ponders this and offers up Texas. Then Florida and Texas. Hector counters with Florida, Texas, and Hawaii. Territories don’t seem to matter much anymore. But the next morning Hector leaves and later Sam has it out with Reg about the older sister getting every guy Sam ever had her eye on, and now probably has the last guy in the world. After a slight pause, they both start laughing this off. Sibling rivalry takes a back seat to survival, and they have a real heartfelt moment together in their next encounter.

This is a soft conversation between sisters in the midst of a desolate landscape, but Eberhardt chooses a really nice visual presentation: the girls sit on the hood of a police car, Reg in the cop’s jacket twirling a nightstick and Sam still in her cheerleading uniform. Sam talks about a boy she liked who was going to ask her out and a friend who was trying to figure out how to keep her parents from finding out she was flunking algebra. All those problems are completely detached from their present condition. Sam is down and wants to go home to change, but Reg does a big sister job of cheering her up: the stores are open and there’s no need for credit cards! (Cut to an awesome mall-shopping montage set to the recognizable beat but different singer of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”) As one of the scientists will later note, they are in the midst of a monument of consumerism. Unlike the lack of resources that lead to the corruption of humanity in many dystopian presentations, this kind of immediate isolation in a wasteland of material bounty provides a wealth of available goods free for all those who want them.

Later at the galleria, these grody-to-the-max half-zombie wastoids are so out there. I mean, they’re like so gross and want to take control of the girls for invading their space where they were stock-boys but now think they’re all kinds of important and stuff. What neo-maxi-zoom-dweebies! But the wannabe henchmen are like total space-cadet hosers and can’t do anything without the gnarly leader guy telling them what to do. Like, I’m sure.

Sam asks for Reg’s fashion advice and then why she chooses one piece of clothing over another. Reg states quite obviously, “Because it’ll stay in style longer.” There’s just stuff going on in this whole movie about social standards that remain intact even after the people in society disappear. And I think that’s pretty cool.

The girls get captured by the stock-boy zombies, but the scientists from the compound have come to town looking for the radio-station survivors. They rescue the girls from the stock boys in time to take Reg back. They wait for Hector to return and they secretly plan to kill Sam because she is exhibiting signs of zombie-onset. (They don’t know that she breaks out in a rash like whenever she’s stressed.) However, one scientist among the group doesn’t think their survival trumps the welfare of healthy survivors. She had a problem with bringing any survivors into the facility for testing, even before two kids arrive in pajamas like they were just pulled from their Saturday morning cartoons.

She saves Sam by dosing her with a sedative that makes her look like she is dead, leaves the rag-tag group some field notes to brief them on the global situation and what is going on in the research facility, and takes her own life before she turns into a zombie. Hector does come back, and Sam joins him to go to the research facility to rescue Reg, along with the two kids that were brought in earlier, Sarah and Brian. The sisters and Hector (who seems to have enough knowledge of explosives to MacGyver some car bombs to avoid chase at the climax) seem like they will get along just fine once this whole zombie problem runs its course.

Night of the Comet doesn’t present typical military fears of the genre (since their dad trained the girls before going back to service), but silhouettes and partial frames of guards in and around the underground compound suggest an armed force aligned with the scientists. The scary factor here might just be the idea that (compared to the rest of the world we’ve seen survive) the group in the bunker seem to have knowledge of the situation and the power to take the measures they deem fit as best for their group, regardless of how many healthy survivors they have to use as their own personal unconscious blood banks. But if they are the smart ones, who the heck left the vents open?

I kid you not: I woulda veged with nobody to tell me what to do, but Reg steps up and takes charge of family life like it’s no biggie at all. She’s like all conventional-o-rama, and seeing it start to play out makes Sam think she’s left with a lame-ass Joanie future. But then Sam is stoked to find a stud of her own who rolls up in a choice ‘Cedes out his fresh-to-death collection of 23 cars. He is totally on board with the rules of the road, so when Sam brings up what could be a downer of a reality, he thinks it’s a bitchin’ prospect to be, like, responsible for the future of civilization. Yar!

The newly formed family unit is all dressed up in their Sunday best, and Reg is taking Polaroids of the kids as they stand for the pictures smiling but rolling their eyes in between shots. Reg moves to fix their clothes and hair, telling them that she needs to take a few more pictures, so “don’t slouch.” To the side, Hector drops their cache of guns in to a trashcan. Sarah asks if she can have a gun since they are going to waste. Reg, shaking the development of another picture, says to Hector, “Don’t look at me. I mean, I don’t know where she gets that stuff.” Reg has taken on the responsibility to raise a proper family, which apparently involves placing blame on external sources for any questionable behavior.

The happy family walks down from a plaza toward a street, and across from them Sam starts ruminating on her possible future, mumbling, “Maybe I could be a nun or something.” The family walks to the crosswalk, and Reg pushes the button for the walk sign. Sam thinks that they look like the Brady Bunch and yells out to ask why they are waiting. Hector says that they are waiting for the light to change. In disbelief, Sam questions their sanity, but Reg replies, “The whole burden of civilization has fallen upon us.” Reg then adds the edict: “It means we do not cross against the light!” Reg recognizes that even in an isolated existence some social standards must be maintained. Sam runs into the middle of the street as she proclaims how stupid it is to wait for the light when there is no one else in their ghost town.

Suddenly, a car turns the corner and speeds down the street, swerving as Sam bolts away. Reg reinforces the lesson as she looks down at Brian to ask rhetorically, “See what happens?” Lesson learned, the boy nods as the car screeches around to return to Sam. The driver circles back to apologize, but also notes, “God, I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t cross against the light like that.” As they both pull up their sunglasses (since they are both wearing cool shades by the standards of any pre- or post-apocalyptic social trends), the guy smartly deduces that they are survivors, too. Sam agrees to go for a ride without any hesitation. Hector asks who this guy is, why they should trust him, and so Sam gets his name. Reg tells them to be back by midnight, and he is shocked at the imposition of a curfew. Sam repeats the reasoning: “The burden of civilization is on us, OK?” They agree that that is a bitchin’ prospect, and they drive off, the family waving them goodbye from the middle of the street.

The whole traffic-law scenario hearkens back to Reg’s initial escape from the theater alley: she drives the motorcycle on the empty streets but comes to a complete stop at a red light and takes a moment to turn on the headlight. Traffic safety might not seem like the first bastion of social order, but the rules of the road set up the foundation of civilized behavior. Even if no one’s around, you don’t run a red light. I really hope Eberhardt intended for that theme to show through in so many scenes.

What would you do to reinforce the social acceptability of some behavior? Would you sweep the leg in obedience? Would you buzz the tower in defiance? Would you beat down your step-kid when she won’t serve hors d’oeuvres at your decadent party? Would you check in on your parents even if all rational hope for their survival is lost? Would you rescue kids being exploited by others and try to teach them life lessons? Would you look both ways and refuse to cross against the light? Yeah, I can see how that one might stand out as somewhat insignificant, but once you start deciding what kind of world order you would choose, the burden of civilization is on you… and that is a totally bitchin’ landscape, dude.