Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978)

Kiss are a genuine rock and roll phenomenon, four occasionally made-up, larger-than-life rockers whose over-the-top stage shows and ludicrous stage personae have made them one of the biggest bands on the planet. At the tail-end of the 1970s, at the height of their success, the foursome succumbed to that affliction that seemed to grip many a 70s band and decided that acting was the next step on the road to world domination. How wrong they were...

The result was Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, sometimes referred to as Attack of the Phantoms, a TV movie in which the group - then comprising drummer Peter Criss (alter ego: Cat Man), lead guitarist Ace Frehley (Space Ace), bass player Gene Simmons (Demon) and rhythm guitarist/singer Paul Stanley (Starchild) - are reinvented as superheroes, taking on the evil Abner Devereaux [perennial movie villain Anthony Zerbe], an amusement park engineer dabbling in mind control, a series of life-like cyborgs and robot doppelgangers.

Kiss get involved when Devereaux creates a mechanical Gene Simmons which goes on the rampage in the park and the daft plot culminates in a fake Kiss taking to the stage and trying to incite the crowd to riot. Naturally the real Kiss - inexplicably imbued with superpowers - come to the rescue and strut their fire-breathing, blood-spitting stuff in a climactic concert.

Extraordinarily bad in almost every respect, Kiss in Phantom of the Park is an ordeal even for the most devoted of Kiss fanatic, let alone the rest of us. Kiss may have been right when they declared that God gave rock and roll to us - sadly He took his eye off the ball when this piece of televisual excrement was being prepared and failed to step in to save Mankind from that most unpleasant of terrors: the rock band vanity project. Everything about this effort is cock-eyed or just plain wrong, from the title (Kiss never actually meet any "Phantom of the Park") to the premise (Kiss as superheroes? Please...) to the special effects (special? Ha!) to very notion that Kiss could carry a film on their acting talents alone (the entire band appears to be stoned throughout and for all he contributes the proceedings Frehley may well not have turned up at all).

Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park was made by Hanna-Barbera Productions, better known at that time for its seemingly endless production line of cheapjack kids cartoons and it resembles nothing more than a live-action version of one of the company's best known shows, Scooby Doo, Where Are You? (1969 - 1972). And it's just as predictable and vapid as that show was. Director Gordon Hessler was a very long way from his late 60s/early 70s British horrors (The Oblong Box (1969), Scream and Scream Again (1970), Cry of the Banshee (1970)) and it's clear from the lazy way he stages the token "action" scenes that his heart just wasn't in it. And who can blame him...

Extraordinarily, Kiss contribute less music to the effort than you might expect. After a sort-of promo video opening sequence, there are couple of concert sequences but the rest of the soundtrack is bog standard (ie horrid) late-70s disco wah-wah crap that would have had most Kiss fans vomiting as much blood as their heroes.

Even more extraordinarily, Kiss (sort of) got a second chance at screen stardom when they were the subject of fans' attempts to blag their way into a concert in Adam Rifkin's Detroit Rock City (1999), which wasn't terribly good but which was far and away preferable to Phantom. In the years between the two films, Gene Simmons had a go at "proper" acting, turning up in the likes of Runaway (1984), Trick or Treat (1986), Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987) and Red Surf (1990). perhaps unsurprisingly, Oscar has yet to come a-calling.

Terrible, terrible terrible... If you're a Kiss fan, you'll want to watch it of course but prepare yourself for nothing but disappointment, heartache and disillusionment. You have been warned!
KEVIN LYONS