“Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew!”
While Halloween may be considered amateur night for hardcore cosplayers, it’s the time of year for people to masquerade. For the past 40 years, a group of venture capitalists have been masquerading as a rock band. Toys, comic books, coffins, credit cards, among countless other pieces of poorly manufactured ephemera have all carried the KISS insignia. They’re the Krusty the Clown of rock ‘n’ roll. If there were a Sell-Out Hall of Fame, they’d be the inaugural inductees. So it should surprise no one that Kiss would lend their name to a shoddy made-for-TV movie, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. It’s just another example of how the whole of KISS’ work can be summed up in a comedy bit.
KISS has a natural draw to younger crowds. Their image is tailor made for a kid that’s into pro wrestling or comic books and fantasy novels. This made-for-TV movie, produced by animation giant Hanna-Barbera, tries to extend this association by turning KISS into superheroes. Ace Frehley can fly, Paul Stanley has the ability to sense the location of a random girl’s boyfriend, Peter Criss sings Beth, and Gene Simmons roars like the MGM lion. It was a vain attempt to create KISS mythology with its weird talismans that give the band their powers and their bizarre high-chair council.
“Actually, it’s about ethics in video game journalism.”
The film is much like the entirety of KISS’ career – self-serious, over-commercialized, and infantile. Dubbed the biggest band in the world, KISS are about to play a series of shows at an amusement park. Meanwhile, the inventor behind the park’s animatronics has just been fired. Instead of collecting unemployment like a normal person, Abner Devereaux (Anthony Zerbe) retreats to the far reaches of the amusement park to craft the perfect kind of animatronic killing machine. Throughout all this a young girl searches for her missing boyfriend who was last seen in the employ of Devereaux. Between shows, KISS use their superpowers to combat Devereaux’s personal army. The band is captured and their show is performed by animatronic replacements. This all culminates in an epic battle where KISS battle their unlicensed imitations on stage before the KISS Army revolts and destroys the park.
Journeyman director Gordon Hessler makes his second film in which a mad scientist makes humanoid imposters, after 1970’s delightfully psychedelic Scream and Scream Again, but he’s unable to bring any of the competence he carried with him through his various horror films in the ‘70s. The film is awful but undeniably entertaining. None of the members of KISS can act worth a damn, especially Paul Stanley who, for some reason, is given most of the dialogue. As mentioned earlier, Gene Simmons pretty much just growls, though when he speaks there’s some kind of effect layered over it. Mind, all of this is done with a straight face.
The least offensive thing to come out Gene Simmons’ mouth in 35 years.
All of the footage of KISS playing exemplifies why the band’s success happened in spite of their music. Their songs are simplistic and generic, relying on repetitive choruses to get stuck in your head. But nobody really goes to see KISS for the music. It’s always about the spectacle – the fireworks, the fire breathing, the make-up, the costumes, the showmanship. Not content with just repeating choruses, the film actually plays the one KISS song that everybody knows, Rock and Roll All Nite, and its repetitive structure twice.
It should surprise no one that a shitty band made a shitty made-for-TV movie. There are a good number of people I know, like our editor-in-chief who covers the LA KISS arena football team (yes, they even have a football team), but none of that changes the fact they’re a mediocre band who found success for silly face paint. One can only assume that KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park is the last piece of KISS merchandise that was made in America. The movie is nothing more than another disposable product licensed from a board room with painted faces that will license anything to anyone. Unlike the Ramones, who elevated Rock ‘n’ Roll High School into the realm of cult wonder, KISS lowers their movie to a cheap cash-in. If there’s one thing those guys know about, it’s a cheap cash-in.
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