KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (1979)

Though the members of the group despised being in this movie (produced by the same guys who did Yogi Bear, The Flintstones...and Scooby Doo !), forget the cheesiness, the some-what bad dialogue, this is a comic book movie here. And a way to see the band KISS in its heyday as a truly original rock band, complete with masks and apparel. And yes, even Gene throws its tongue out ! Shout it out loud, don't take this movie seriously. Light entertainment and rock music. This wasn't meant to be a masterpiece and this is a movie worth the curiosity. Watch it for KISS.'Nuff said !

This "film" is an embarrassment to cinema, it makes the fourth Jaws film seem like an Oscar worthy picture. This movie represents everything that the band "Kiss" represent, which is mindless stupidity in a vain attempt to swindle money from their fan base. Much like the way Michael Bay treats the viewers of "Transformers" as mindless fools who will pay in as long as the CGI robots fight for 2 hours of the movie, Kiss knows all they had to do was show up on a film set and their fans would go crazy, name one thing Kiss has put their faces on which didn't sell, hell the Kiss Coffin sells, there are a lot of really Dumb people alive and Kiss takes advantage of these people. If you feel that you have respect for anyone in this hunk of crap band, please watch this movie, and then listen to their song "Great Expectations" because Kiss is absolutely the worst thing to grace entertainment.

This movie is ridiculous! Which makes it awesome The story starts at an amusement park, and there are all these stands advertising the rides and on these stands there are robots that move back and forth like robots do, or wait, no those aren't robots, those are actors doing the robot.And you will see this repeated throughout the whole movie, all the robots are just people doing the robot, it is hilarious.Then you'll come to these parts where at first on screen there will be an actor doing the robot, then the camera will move away, when the camera comes back the actor is gone and in place is a poorly crafted plastic head of the actor. It's so ridiculous you'll be saying, were they serious? Then we get to Gene Simmons obviously everyone's favorite, so in this movie, every ten minutes He's breathing Fire, and Roaring Like a Lion, and then to top it off when he talks they make his voice that of a demons. It's just over the top And then the fight scenes! The stunt doubles are terribly noticeable, but they do fight Robot Werewolves so I mean that's pretty sweet.Your going to be bored watching this, I mean all the live performances they show, all they do is lipsync there recorded songs, The only good part there is in this movie is when the sing Beth, in fact that's the whole reason I watched this movie.

KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park is set at the Magic Mountain Amusement Park which is gearing up to hold a series of KISS concerts in a hope to generate some much needed cash. Park manager Calvin Richards (Carmine Caridi) fires the park's creator & brilliant scientist Abner Devereaux (Anthony Zerbe) who is not very happy about it, as revenge he takes control of his assistant Sam (Terry Lester) in order to put a devious plan into action. Devereaux plans to make exact robotic replicas of the members of KISS & substitute them for the real thing & using their popularity & altered on stage lyrics intends to incite a riot which will destroy the park & leave him all satisfied & happy. However KISS aren't any ordinary rock band & are in fact superheroes who decide to fight Devereaux & stop is evil plan.Originally made for telly by the Hanna-Barbara Production company (yes the same one responsible for all those cartoons) & loosely based on the Marvel comic books which had KISS as an ordinary rock band by day & superheroes by night this is one of the most amazingly bad films I have ever seen, it's the type of film where mere words alone cannot do it justice & you just have to have seen it to understand what everyone else is on about. First of all I should point out that KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park aired on US telly before being re-edited, re-scored, retitled to KISS Attack of the Phantom & getting a theatrical release throughout Europe & the two films have fairly significant differences. Many scenes present in the US version are not in the European one & vise-versa while the soundtrack is also very different with many more solo KISS songs in the European cut. I will be basing my comment on the European version & have not seen the US television cut. To be honest I don't quite know where to start to describe KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, it's quite simply one of the most hilariously bad, over-the-top, unintentionally funny, camp, silly, childish & downright entertaining part horror, part action, part superhero, part comedy, part rock concert films I have ever seen. The script is terrible & has the most moronic plot ever, this scientist because he is being fired devises a horribly complicated & expensive plan to destroy a theme park but the rock band KISS who are really superheroes foil his plan. This has everything, a mad scientist, bad special effects, musical concert footage badly edited into the story, endless shots of random amusement park rides, a love interest subplot, the worst looking Frankenstein monster ever committed to film, the whole 70's hippy vibe & even some teenage thugs who have names like Slime, Chopper & Dirty Dee. How could any self respecting lover of horror, trash, cult, sci-fi & bad cinema in general not like KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park? It's absolute rubbish from start to finish but boy is it entertaining laugh out loud & cringe in embarrassment rubbish with an ending that makes zero sense.I must admit I know nothing about KISS as a band, until I saw this I don't think I had ever consciously listened to one of their teen orientated rock tracks in my life & I have to say that after seeing this I am most definitely not a fan. The concert footage might appeal to some but I thought it sucked & they just look ridiculous in those outfits & that clown inspired face-paint. When they aren't performing on stage they are superheroes & their special powers are lame, one shoots silly laser beams from his eyes, the other breathes fire & another can teleport wherever he likes & I'm not sure about the fourth member as he didn't really do anything that could be describes as superhero-ish. All of their voices have been electronically altered to presumably sound menacing but fail completely & they not only look ridiculous but sound it as well. The fight scenes are strictly for kids & look awful, they are badly choreographed & no-one ends up getting hurt. The opening titles are also a hoot as superimposed images of KISS play over shots of the amusement park at night.The film has a very bland flat & frankly dull look about it, it screams TV film. Apparently all four members of KISS hate the film & it's easy to see why as it makes them look like prize turkey's. According to the IMDb the bad were given their lines on set just before action was called & none of them even knew how the film would end which I suppose means there wasn't a script & to be honest it really does feel although this was made up as the makers went along. As I said I am not a fan of KISS, I mean judging by this they can neither sing nor act!KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (wrong, there is no mysterious Phantom in this) is one of those guilty pleasure type films, it's absolutely awful in every way from start to finish but it's just so funny & ridiculous that I couldn't help but be entertained by it although if you have a low pain threshold you might want to give this a miss.