KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park

It’s HARD ROCKING HORROR MONTH at Mondo Mondays, and we’re turning it up to “11” with enough music, monsters and bad movie mayhem to make your speakers go BOOM!

Travel back in time to an era when one of the world’s most popular rock bands would agree to make their film debut starring in a legendarily bizarre, made-for-TV schlock-o-rama aimed at kids in which they’re given super powers and forced to battle robots, perform in an amusement park and not die of embarrassment. Yes, the Beatles had A Hard Day’s Night, and Kiss had … Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park! In this jaw-dropping 1978 oddity created by the prolific (and obviously demented) ’70s Saturday morning TV kingpins Hannah-Barbera (the geniuses behind such classics as Scooby-Doo and The Banana Splits), Kiss is not only a famous rock band, but also a gang of superheroes from outer space who own a secret talisman that gives them amazing powers (like the ability to jump really high, walk on clouds and shoot lasers from their eyes) to battle the forces of darkness, and yet, they still love to rock and roll all night. When they agree to play a massive concert at a Southern California amusement park, they run afoul of an evil inventor who hates the fact that a rock band is overshadowing his high-tech contributions to the park. And thus begins an all-out assault on the senses encompassing performances of Kiss’ greatest hits, scary monsters, kung-fu battles, robot doubles, chaste romance (involving a woman named “Beth,” natch), corny dialogue, cheap SFX , made-for-TV production values, and a general level of true weirdness that has never quite been duplicated.  THIS is rock ‘n roll!  (Dir. by Gordon Hessler, 1978, USA, 86 mins., Rated PG)