"Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park" My Tenth Must See Pick for the Halloween Season

Sandwiched between the pot smoking, acid dropping love in’s of the 1960’s and the cocaine fueled rage of the 1980’s, the 1970’s proved to be one fucked up decade. Hence today’s installment of Halloween madness, “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park”.

Originally made for television, before anyone thought about something called Mtv, by NBC then later put in theatrical rotation outside the US where it finally got repackaged and put out on VHS;  Part “Scooby Mystery” part “Westworld” and all Rock Opera, “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park” is a cult fav amongst Kiss fans.

The movie opens and we, the viewer, find Melissa (Deborah Ryan) and her boyfriend Sam (Terry Lester) enjoying a day at Magic Mountain Amusement Park. It is just your usual day of sunshine and lovebirds, that is until Sam gets the gumption to investigate the weird and strange acting park engineer, Abner Devereaux (Anthony Zerbe), who is creating a new attraction of cybernetic creatures for the park (think Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula). Regrettably for Sam he is caught snooping in places he is not wanted and subsequently turned into a mindless cyborg himself.

Meanwhile, park owner Calvin Richards (Carmine Caridi), faced with a failing business plan and budget crunch diverts Devereaux’s much needed cash flow from the cyborg project and hires Kiss to perform at the park. Thinking that they will bring the kids and the cash. A non-too-happy Devereaux argues with Richards about the money to no avail. That is until a group teenage bikers sabotage one of the rides and nearly kills the riders. An outrage Richards blames Devereaux for the incident and fires the head engineer who then vows revenge upon Richards, the park, and Kiss who Devereaux blames most of all for his lost project funds.

The first step in Devereaux’s evil plot for revenge is to send a Kissbot in the form of Gene Simons to roam around the park destroying things. But when Kiss is questioned by authorities no action is taken against them and  the concert goes on as planned. Now an even more pissed off Devereaux sends his monstrous creations after the band and when Devereaux has Kiss locked up tight in his evil laboratory, Devereaux sends his Kissbots to the concert in place of the band in hopes if they start playing the wrong songs that it will entice the crowd to riot.

Oh know, what will Kiss ever do!

So grab a bottle of Jack and a bowl of acid and pull yourselves up to TV and immerse yourself into “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park”. You won’t be disappointed. Well, that is, unless you are on the acid. If not then you’ll probably laugh your ass off.

Until next time…