It Came From the Bargain Bin: "KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park" (1978)

Welcome once again to "It Came From the Bargain Bin," the column dedicated to the budget conscious B-Movie fan. In the spirit of Thanksgiving Weekend we're investigating a true turkey tonight... "KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park," 1978's pseudo-classic TV movie starring the iconic hard rock band. On paper, this sci-fi thriller certainly sounds like a can't miss concept. Check out some of the breathless hype from the back of the home video box:

"The dynamic rock group KISS makes its feature film debut in a spine tingling mystery that matches KISS' extraordinary powers against a demented genius inventor ...featured is some of KISS' best music, performed with stunning special effects!"

...of course, anyone who's actually seen the film will immediately call B.S. on those "spine tingling" and "stunning special effects" claims. The only "stunning" thing about this movie is how bad it is. "KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park" is a hilariously awesome train wreck of epic proportions, with cheap special effects, a ridiculous plot, out-to-lunch scripting and uniformly terrible perfomances, all slathered in a shiny layer of glorious low budget made-for-TV Cheez Whiz.

"Phantom" must've seemed like a good idea to somebody at the time. KISS was at the peak of their mainstream popularity in 1978 and Marvel Comics had recently produced two giant sized Super Special comic books based on the band, where the KISS members appeared as super-heroic characters with mystical powers (provided by a set of mysterious amulets) who battled Dr. Doom and other Marvel Universe baddies. The books were silly as hell but they set sales records for Marvel, so the KISS camp decided that a "KISS as superheroes" film was the logical next step. A deal was quickly struck with Hanna-Barbera Productions (yes, the notoriously shoddy cartoon studio that brought us "Scooby-Doo" and dozens of other cheaply animated Saturday Morning favorites) and NBC Television. In the rush to get the project on the air in time for the Halloween season, apparently no one at NBC or Hanna-Barberea worried about unimportant details like a coherent script, or whether anyone in the band knew how to act. The result was a film that bad movie aficionados and KISS Army members alike have been laughing about for over thirty years.

When "KISS Meets the Phantom" begins, the film seems more like an extended infomercial for the Magic Mountain Amusement Park, as the cameras linger lovingly over the roller coasters, merry go rounds, and attractions while Godzilla sized versions of the KISS members perform "Rock and Roll All Nite" over the opening credits. KISS are slated to play a series of concerts at the park, which manager Calvin (Carmine Caridi) hopes will finally bring a much needed attendance boost and cash infusion to the struggling amusement area. Less enthusiastic is Abner Devareux (a totally slumming Anthony Zerbe of "Papillon" and "The Omega Man" fame), the eccentric creator of the park's lifelike cybernetic robots and mechanical attractions. Abner's ticked off that Calvin is funneling money away from his research projects to pay for "that rock and roll." After an argument with Calvin, Abner is given his walking papers, but what management doesn't know is that Abner's "research" involves occasionally kidnapping random park attendees (!!) and re-programming their brains for use as his own private android servants (gosh!). Abner swears to Calvin "You will...regret...this day!" Meanwhile, viewers are already saying, "I think I already regret watching this movie."

After the opening credit sequence, it takes a good forty minutes or so before the members of KISS even show their grease painted mugs in this movie again, but unfortunately, it doesn't get a whole lot better once they do. We're introduced to the lovely Melissa (Deborah Ryan), whose boyfriend Sam (Terry Lester) works in Devareux's laboratory. When Sam mysteriously disappears (we already know he's become one of Devareux's android zombies), she gets the brush-off from old Abner while searching for him, so she decides to investigate for herself and manages to rope the members of KISS into helping her unravel the mystery. Remember, kids, in whatever alternate reality this film takes place in, KISS are not just a rock 'n' roll band, they're super heroes too!! Thanks to their way-cool set of mystic talismans, each band member has a special super power - Gene Simmons is the fire breathing, animal growling "Demon," Ace Frehley is the "Space Ace" with powers of teleportation, Paul "Star Child" Stanley can shoot laser beams out of his eye, and Peter "Cat Man" Criss possesses cat like strength and agility (as well as a seemingly endless well of bad feline-related puns). From here the film turns into an extended Scooby-Doo Movie with KISS in place of the Mystery Machine Gang. Sensing that these super powered rock 'n' rollers may pose a threat to his Ultimate Revenge against the park, Devareux quickly whips up a set of four cybernetic KISS duplicates, starting with The Demon, who vandalizes some park property and injures some security guards. With KISS under a black cloud of suspicion, the band begins to poke around the park after hours, battling an army of Devareux's robot werewolves (?) beneath the roller coaster before they're captured in the horror themed funhouse. With the real band locked away in his secret underground laboratory, Devareux sends his robotic KISS out onstage in their place, where they perform a "slightly altered" version of the hit "Hotter Than Hell" (re-titled "Rip and Destroy") in the hopes that the angry fans will start a riot and destroy the park. Thus, the stage is set for an earth shattering climax, as KISS escapes from the mad scientist's clutches and appears onstage to fight it out with the robots and settle who's the real KISS once and for all. "There can BE only one!" ...oops, sorry, wrong movie.

I could go on all day about how hilariously awful this movie is, from its absurd premise to its ham-handed execution. The band members sleepwalk through their roles, as if they realized early on that they were trapped in a bomb and just wanted to get through it as quickly as possible. The only time Peter Criss' real voice is heard in the film is during a brief acoustic performance of the hit song "Beth," as the rest of his dialogue was re-dubbed by another actor. I lost count of how many times a band member was replaced by an all too obvious stunt double during action sequences. You can almost hear the band saying to themselves, "How did we get here ? We were promised a combination of 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Star Wars'!" Perhaps the most insulting thing of all is the music. You'd think a KISS movie would be packed wall to wall with KISS tunes, but aside from the brief concert scenes which provide the movie's few highlights, the soundtrack to "KISS Meets the Phantom" is made up of hilarious disco-influenced "action music" that sounds like it wandered in from an episode of "Charlie's Angels." Perhaps the best way to sum up the movie is by using Ace Frehley's constant, bewildering catch phrase from throughout the film: "ACK!"

To understand why "KISS Meets the Phantom" was such a misfire, you have to understand the circumstances of its creation. KISS was more than just a band in 1978, they were a brand, unlike anything else in rock and roll at the time. They regularly sold out concerts around the world, racked up a string of multi-platinum albums and willingly slapped their logo and face-painted images on just about any piece of licensed merchandise - t-shirts, belt buckles, radios, children's toys, board games, ad infinitum - that was waved under their noses. Long time fans had begun to wonder if the band had any shame at all. Once this film hit the airwaves, they finally had a definitive answer to that question: Yes, KISS does feel shame, because they are ashamed of this film. For much of the next two decades, they rarely spoke of "Phantom" and if they did, it was only in the most damning of terms. In the band's home video "KISS: X-Treme Close Up," Paul Stanley says, "I didn't even know how the movie ended...while we were making it!" and he's also spoken of "wanting to crawl under his seat and hide" during the movie's Hollywood premiere.

Despite all the behind the scenes drama, "KISS Meets the Phantom" premiered on NBC-TV's "Saturday Night at the Movies" in October of '78 and the faithful KISS Army tuned in to watch in droves. "Phantom" turned out to be NBC's second highest rated program of that season (bested only by a mini-series based on James Clavell's best seller "Shogun"), but it did irreparable damage to the band's already-shaky reputation. Quickly denounced as "kid stuff" by the fans, the film certainly aggravated the internal tensions that had been building between the four band members for some time. The relationship between Criss, Frehley, Simmons and Stanley was already troubled before they even started shooting "Phantom," and by the end of it they could barely stand to be in the same room with one another. Legend has it that Frehley and Criss both expressed their desire to quit KISS and embark on solo careers during their hellish experience filming this movie. Simmons and Stanley reportedly talked them into staying in the group by offering them both the chance to do solo records while still under the KISS banner. The famous "four solo albums" - one from each KISS member - were released later in 1978 and though that may have placated Frehley and Criss for a while, their days in the band were still numbered. Criss was out by 1980 and Frehley finally walked away in 1982. We probably shouldn't blame "KISS Meets the Phantom" for the breakup of the original foursome, but it certainly didn't help!

The band remained embarrassed by the whole "Phantom" debacle for several decades, though in recent years they seem to have finally developed a sense of humor about it. Home video releases of the movie had been limited to a laserdisc (remember those?) and two blink-and-you-missed it VHS issues during the '80s until it finally became available on DVD as part of the band's "KISSology Volume 2" video box set in 2007. The version of "Phantom" on the KISSology DVD is actually an alternate cut of the movie that was released to theatres outside of the U.S., in which several scenes were altered and much of the cartoony "action" music was replaced by tunes from the band members' individual solo albums. (Side note; I can only imagine how ticked off KISS' overseas fans must've been after paying good money to watch this travesty in a theatre. At least in the U.S., we got to see it on TV for nothing!) I personally have never seen this cut of the movie, though I'm told that it's the superior version of the film, for whatever that's worth.

To this day, "KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park" remains a treasured bit of KISStory, even if it is for all the wrong reasons. For many, the film is a litmus test for how much of a KISS fan you are. If you've only seen it once, you're only a casual KISS fan. If you've seen it two or three times, you're a pretty big fan. If you've seen it five or more times (guilty), then you're a die hard, card carrying member of the KISS Army (and you should probably seek professional help). Unless you're a complete, utterly obsessed KISS fanboy or you have a high tolerance for B-Movie pain (unfortunately I fill both requirements), my advice is to skip this one and seek out a copy of 1999's far superior "Detroit Rock City" if you're looking for a KISS movie fix. KISS' appearance in that movie is little more than a glorified cameo appearance, but at least the film is actually entertaining. Rip, rip, rip and destroy!!