Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park

1978

Fantasy / Horror / Music / Mystery / Sci-Fi

7
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 60%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 60% · 5K ratings
IMDb Rating 4.6/10 10 3671 3.7K

rock 'n' roll rock star kiss robot makeup amusement park

Plot summary

The tale of rock band KISS and their efforts to thwart a diabolical plan by mad scientist Abner Devereaux. Devereaux has found a way to clone humans into robots in his laboratory at an amusement park. It just so happens that he plans to use the KISS concert as a platform to unleash his plan on the world. KISS must use their special powers to stop him.

Director

Gordon Hessler Photo
Gordon Hessler

Top cast

Michael Bell Photo
Michael Bell as Cat Man
Carmine Caridi Photo
Carmine Caridi as Calvin Richards
Steve Boyum Photo
Steve Boyum as Dracula
Don Steele Photo
Don Steele as Self
720p.WEB
794.64 MB
1280*622
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
29.97 fps
1 hr 26 min
Seeds 36

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by MetalGeek 5 / 10

"What's That Humming Noise?"

KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK... what a film! I first encountered this film as a Movie-Of-The Week on TV when I was about nine years old. I thought it was great then, of course, because back then (late '70s) ANYTHING Kiss-related was "great." When I saw it again years later on the late movie I found it hard to keep my drink from spraying out of my nose while I laughed hysterically through the entire movie. I ran out and found the movie on VHS the next day and spent many a happy Saturday night during college exposing my friends to this underrated gem. It became a surrogate "Rocky Horror" midnight movie for the metal heads in my dorm. The other posts on this movie have already beaten the "plot" (or lack thereof) to death so I don't need to berate it any further. Let's just say this: the script is hilariously bad, as are the performances, the special effects, etc., etc. But for KISS fans this is mandatory viewing at least once. In fact, I use this film as a litmus test when speaking to other KISS fans to find out how hardcore they are. I ask "Have you seen KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM?" and if they answer "Yes," I ask "How many times?" If the answer is more than five times, then I know I'm in the company of a hardcore member of the KISS Army. The band may hate this movie (I believe they even sued a DVD distributor recently for releasing the film on DVD and had it taken out of circulation) but I simply can't get enough of the Star-Child ("you're looking for someone...but it's not KISS"), Space Ace ("Insufficient data, Starchild! ACK!"), the Demon (There ARE no right hands but OURS!"), and the Cat Man ("Gene's brother was an only child!")in action. It's a bad movie to end all bad movies. I love bad movies, and I love KISS, so for me it's a match made in heaven.
Reviewed by b5erik 5 / 10

Is it really that bad? Well, yes, but...

Consider this: In 1978 Wonder Woman was a fairly decent sized hit TV series. Cheese and camp were in. KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park originally was planned (and scripted) as "Star Wars meets A Hard Day's Night." Unfortunately, the network censors decided that it was too violent and too serious for all the kids that would likely be watching, so the script was toned down. After 3 or 4 re-writes the script hardly resembled that which the band and their management agreed to, but they had already signed their contracts, so...Out came KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park to TV screens in the Fall of 1978. It was bad, unintentionally funny in spots, and yet - it was still kind of cool if you "got it." The idea of KISS as superheroes was a natural, and, in fact, it followed the two Marvel Comics KISS special issues from 1977 & 1978 - including the idea of where they got their powers. There are some ideas in the story that if fleshed out and written well could have made for a good TV movie. Unfortunately Hanna Barbera was running the show, and turned it into a live action cartoon - with the approval (and outright urging) of NBC. The band so hated the script that even Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons - the guys in the band with good work ethic and aspirations of becoming serious Hollywood actors someday - didn't bother to study their lines. They just had their lines barked out to them and repeated them for each take. Peter Criss, as has been noted many times, didn't even bother to show up for the "looping," or overdubbing of his voice to fix the spots where the audio recording wasn't up to par (and had his voice replaced by a cartoon voice actor throughout the film as a result). Ace Frehley also seems disinterested for most of the movie (and as he was, and still is, a big Science Fiction fan that shows just how unhappy he was with the script - and the film-making process in general).Anthony Zerbe and Carmine Caridi, however, do their best to salvage something out of this mess. They give solid, fairly believable performances despite dialog that is often cheesy, and despite their characters being written as cardboard cut-outs rather than 3 dimensional people. Kudos to them, they clearly were (and still are) professionals.The highlights of the movie end up being the music and the cheesy fight scenes - and maybe the interplay between Zerbe's Abner Deveraux and Caridi's Calvin Richards. KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park can be fun to watch IF you go into it expecting a cheesy 70's superhero camp movie. If that's all you expect, then it meets and exceeds those expectations. It's a great bit of nostalgia as well.KISS survived this movie, but just barely. A year later they had a huge hit with their Dynasty album, but then saw Peter Criss leave the band, with Ace Frehley following suit a couple of years later. They saw their fortunes fade for a few years (despite the introduction of the late, great Eric Carr on drums in 1980) before their career revival minus the make-up with albums like Lick It Up, Animalize, Asylum, and Revenge. In 1996 the original group got back together for a wildly successful reunion that lasted for 5 years. Once again, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley proved to be too unstable and erratic to continue in the band, and they each ended up leaving KISS (or being asked to leave) for a second time. Despite a "Farewell Tour" in 2000-2001 KISS still continues today, and they still hate this movie. But like a veteran telling war stories, they still tell the tale of making this movie, and of how a great idea was turned into something profoundly stupid yet still strangely compelling.
Reviewed by Ditchythered 4 / 10

The best and worst film ever.... With KISS!!!

This is such a terrible movie that i can't help but love it. It's so pointless! The plot is terrible, it looks like it was shot on a broken VHS camera by someone with a blindfold on. The acting really couldn't be any worse but the music is good apart from when the evil Kiss robots do a show. Can anyone tell me why Beth is in there, yeah it's a good song but it's not set-up, no-one comments on it and everyone is just posing... absurdly. The thing i love the most though is how Gene strides around in his platforms, he looks like he's been riding a horse for too long! It's such fun it has to be watched and absolutely essential if your in danger of taking Kiss too seriously...These are the reasons why i hate this film and the reasons why i love it. Don't ask me how that works i'm as confused as you.
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