KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park was a made-for-TV movie that aired on NBC in 1978, at the height of the band’s popularity. The movie showed KISS using their superpowers to battle a mad scientist. At the time, the movie flopped and the band hated it more than anyone. However, it has achieved cult status in the following decades. In a recent interview, Paul Stanley discussed the ill-fated film.
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Earlier this year, Stanley sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about the movie. “I embrace it like an ugly child,” Stanley told the publication. “You have to realize that we were these imbeciles who got to take over the school. We knew nothing about acting, nothing about filmmaking,” Stanley added.
The KISS co-founder went on to say that they were told the movie would be like A Hard Day’s Night meets Star Wars. “It was far from either,” he said.
At the time, KISS knew all about rocking the world. They were at the height of their popularity, selling millions of dollars worth of merchandise and albums. However, despite the theatrical elements of their live shows, they knew nothing about acting.
“You had 4 guys who never read the script, who were clueless about even the fundamentals of acting, basically allowed to do whatever we wanted to,” Stanley recalled. If the band were able to say their lines without flubbing them, the director counted it as a good take.
Stanley recalled that he and the rest of the band watched a screening of the film before it aired. Even then, he knew it was terrible. “I just slid further and further down in my chair. By the time it was over, I was looking at chewing gum on the bottom of the seats,” he said. “I remember a scene where we were levitating some magic box and you could see the wires onscreen.”
Stanley and his KISS bandmates weren’t the only people who hated the movie upon release. However, fans of the band have come to love the film over the years. Currently, the movie has a 61% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
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