On 28. October 1978, Kiss’ first movie “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park” (also known as “Attack of the Phantoms” in Europe and “Kiss Phantoms” in Italy) was aired for the first time. The film was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, and the movie’s plot revolves around Kiss, who use their superpowers to battle an evil inventor (Abner Devereaux, played by Anthony Zerbe) and to save a California amusement park from destruction.
NBC aired the film at the height of Kiss’ popularity in the United States. Due to the film’s poor acting and semi-comedic script, most Kiss fans disliked the film. Despite the film’s poor quality, it has attained cult film status. The members of Kiss despised the film for making them appear buffoonish. For years after its airing, no one who worked for the group was permitted to mention the film in their presence.
Filming for “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park” began 11. May 1978. Most of the picture was filmed at Magic Mountain in California, with additional filming taking place in the Hollywood Hills. Much of the production was rushed, and the script underwent numerous rewrites. All four members of Kiss were given crash courses on acting.
While acting is often considered a glamorous profession, in reality it involves a lot of repetition and monotony, where actors spend hours waiting to be called onto the set. This was a tedious routine that soon began to take its toll on some of the band, with both Frehley and Criss retreating to their trailers to indulge in alcohol and drugs while waiting to hear from the director. ‘Ace felt the same contempt for the film. We would visit each other in our trailers and we both stocked our refrigerators with wall-to-wall green bottles of Heineken,’ stated Criss in his own biography Makeup to Breakup: My Life in and Out of Kiss.
‘We’d drink and snort coke all day while we waited for our calls. That was the worst part of moviemaking, sitting around for sometimes ten hours before they’d be ready for the scene. I wasn’t accustomed to that kind of discipline, especially when we were in our full make-up, waiting hours to do a five-minute scene. We’d get so fucked up that when we finally got the call, we’d stumble out of the trailer slurring our words and hitting the walls and knocking props over.’ During the course of the shoot, both Criss and Frehley would walk from the set, frustrated by the long hours and lack of excitement, but soon their boredom began to threaten the future of the band.
One day, annoyed by the drawn-out process of shooting the movie, coupled with doubt that he wanted to continue with Kiss, Frehley announced that he wanted to quit. All of the money and glamour that had come with being a rock star had also proved to be a thorn in his side, as Simmons and – to a lesser extent – Stanley remained the face of Kiss, with many magazines often dismissing the other two members in interviews and photo shoots. Frehley had expressed his desire to record a solo album, having performed lead vocals on the track Shock Me the previous year, and he longed for the artistic freedom that came from not being part of a collaboration.
Criss, too, had lost interest in Kiss and wanted to pursue other creative avenues. Concerned that their successful run may soon come to an end, Aucoin made his way to California to meet with Frehley and Criss and called a band meeting in one of the trailers, in which he tried to convince them both to persevere. ‘They told me that the film would really take the band to new heights, that it would cost millions if I walked away, that if we could just get through this film we’d do our solo projects and everything would be okay,’ stated Criss. ‘They kept working on me, and I agreed to finish the movie and then we’d see where we were at.’
The climax to the picture would be the concert that would take place in the amusement park, in which Kiss would perform to a crowd of ecstatic fans, proving that Devereaux’s doubts about the band bringing fortune to the resort were wrong. The live show was filmed at Magic Mountain on 19 May 1978, although with both Frehley and Criss walking from the shoot yet again, some of the segment was shot using body doubles.
Kiss “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park” Australian movie poster
