Hubrisween 2015 :: K is for KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978)

Things are not going well at the Magic Mountain amusement park. The rides are constantly malfunctioning and crowds are dwindling, which hasn’t escaped the notice of park manager, Calvin Richards (Caridi), who lays the blame on the park’s chief engineer, Abner Deveraux (Zerbe); a mechanical genius when it comes to rides and animatronics, which litter the grounds, but Deveraux’s ideas on exploiting them are rather quaint and old-fashioned. He’s also been spending a ton of time and money on research and development, neglecting his other duties in the process, but claims to be close to a new breakthrough that he guarantees will revitalize the park. But Richards has heard enough and spent enough and has other ideas to shore-up his coffers, namely booking the rock band KISS for three nights of concerts, which have already sold out and spiked attendance. He has also come to the regrettable decision to give Deveraux the axe despite his years of hard work and loyal service.

Obviously, Deveraux doesn’t react to this news very well. Blaming Richards and KISS for this turn of events, he holes up in his not-so-secret laboratory, where his snoopy assistant, Sam (Lester), has been robo-lobotimzed into a witless minion. Seems Sam felt the scientist was up to something no good, confided this in his girlfriend, Melissa (Ryan), and started poking around only to get caught. When the girl comes looking for him, Deveraux distracts her with a nickel tour, revealing his new breakthrough: fully functional robots. Doctor Whacky-Doody has also been kidnapping other undesirables and hooligans from the park, frying their brains, and converting them into live-action displays. Why he just doesn’t do the same to Melissa is a bit confusing but would make for a very short movie. And besides, she is about to become an unwitting pawn in Deveraux’s mad revenge scheme, where he plans to destroy both his usurpers and the park in one fell swoop...

With a mix of old school magic show tricks, pyrotechnics, a fantastic (and highly marketable) signature look, topped with some hideously infectious tunes, KISS exploded onto the music scene in 1973 as if from another planet. Inspired by the comic books they loved while growing up all four band-members adopted an alter-ego – Star Child (Stanley), the Demon (Simmons), Space Ace (Frehley) and Cat Man (Criss) -- and seldom appeared in public out of "disguise". And as the band seemed to hit its peak in 1977, their manager, Bill Aucoin, with the band’s approval, developed a two-fold strategy to push the group to the next level of mass appeal after they made a nationwide splash on The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976). The first step was the simultaneous release of four solo albums (which was some much needed alone time to ease rising tensions in the group), and second, a feature film that would "cement their image as larger-than-life rock 'n' roll superheroes."

The groundwork for the film actually began as early as 1976 with some lengthy negotiations with Marvel Comics, who were looking to possibly expand with a new music fanzine. And in January, 1977, Marvel Comics Super Special #1 hit the stands, which featured background articles on KISS, the members, history and discography, and an original 40-page origin story of the group written by Steve Gerber, who was writing fan-favorite Howard the Duck at the time (the band shows up in a couple of issues there, as well, if memory serves), and illustrated by Alan Weiss, Rich Buckler and John and Sal Buscema. A wonderful piece of vintage Marvelcana, the tale begins with each member gaining their unique powers and costumes en masse via mystical totems accidentally obtained through dubious means: Star Child can shoot lasers out of his stamped eye and reads minds; the Demon has enhanced strength and can breathe hellfire; Space Ace can mass teleport; and the Cat Man has the proportional strength and agility of a feline. And then the group does battle with a couple of Marvel's heavy-hitters, Doctor Doom and Mephisto, looking to claim those powerful arcane relics for themselves. The story itself is actually kinda trippy, with a rare moment where Doom lets his guard down about his past and his parents, and would prove profoundly influential on the proposed film to come. To help promote the book, in another brilliant piece of marketing, each band-member had blood drawn to be injected into the red-ink used to print the comic, meaning they bled for their art. Now I ask you, What is more rock 'n' roll than that?

Being tops in the field at the time, teaming up with Marvel Comics was an absolute no-brainer but where Aucoin went from there is a bit of puzzler because the last production company in the world I would’ve thought of to make a KISS-based film would be Hanna-Barbera studios. For even though they made some excellent cartoons over the years (and some not so good ones), there rare live-action output made the wild world of Sid and Marty Kroft look like Olivier and the Royal Shakespeare Company. And this mix of strange bedfellows continued with the hiring of screenwriters Jan Michael Sherman and Don Buday, whose only other credit was the soft-core sleaze vehicle for Cheri “Ginger” Cafaro, Too Hot to Handle (1977), and Gordon Hessler to direct, who had helmed some of Vincent Price’s lesser vehicles [The Oblong Box (1969), Cry of the Banshee (1970)] and a ton of off-the-wall telefilms [Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973), Skyway to Death (1974)] . And together, even though it was pitched to the group as A Hard Day’s Night meets Star Wars, what KISS got was shoehorned into an episode of The Monkees – or more appropriately, a Halloween episode of The Banana Splits.

Filming for Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park began in May, 1978, mostly on location at Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park in Valencia, California, with additional filming in the Hollywood Hills. (In fact, I’m pretty sure the KISS-Crib was Simmons’ own mansion in Beverly Hills.) And when the band finally shows up (a full thirty minutes into the film), they do make one helluva an entrance: a kaiju-like hello, that begins with explosions in the night sky, and then ends with characters materializing out of nothing and stock sound-effects before strutting down laser beams to the stage.

After the show, Melissa spots Robo-Sam snapping reference shots of KISS at Deveraux’s behest. When Keystone Security’s finest stop her from reaching him, the band intervenes but Robo-Sam is long gone. And after Star Child scans her brain and determines Melissa isn’t lying when she relates her tale of woe, Cat Man tries to cheer her up by singing “Beth”, a great tune, and an excellent make-up ballad but thee worst cheering up song of ever.

Meanwhile, Devereaux completes work on his first KISS-bot, the Demon, who escapes and goes on a rampage, taking out several security guards and one balsa-wood refreshment stand. When the band is questioned about the attack, with the real Demon under threat of arrest, Richards pulls the plug on the internal investigation until after the last concert. Connecting the frame-up with Melissa’s story about Deveraux’s not-so-secret lab and what he’s been up to down there, that night, KISS decides to investigate by sneaking into the park, where they are confronted by an army of automatons. 

And while the Super-Band fights their way through them to get to the mad scientist’s lair (well, their stuntmen, mostly, and kudos for pulling off those flips and kicks in those platform boots), Robo-Sam makes a second attempt to break into the KISS-Crib and steal the box containing the magic talismans, the source of KISS’s power (which is straight out of the Marvel comic), and this time, he succeeds and hands them over to Deveraux, who zaps them with ray-gun that, essentially, sucks all the mystical juice out, leaving KISS, currently fighting their way through the Famous Monsters of Filmland exhibit, powerless, allowing the evil scientist to suck them up into an electrified cage with a giant, four-nozzled vacuum cleaner. *whew* And with the real band out of the way, Deveraux’s master plan comes to fruition when he unleashes his duplicate KISS-bots for the last show, with orders to stir the crowd into an uncontrollable frenzy and then sic them on the park to level it completely.

Sounds exciting, right? Eh, no, not really. Now, I hadn’t seen Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park since its original Halloween broadcast in 1978. Eight year old me thought it was just great, but 44 year old me found it to be deliriously awful on a staggering scale with just a whiff of pretentiousness coming from the band, whose serious tone (except for Ace) clashes wildly with the plot they’re hammered into and fails to gel. Honestly, it felt like someone filmed the walk through and then realized they were out of film and out of time and money, turned it over to the network, and then ran for the hills. And as it turns out, that isn’t too terribly far from the truth.

While writing the script, Sherman and Buday spent time with each band member to get a feel for their characters. As the legend goes, Ace Frehley, a well-known eccentric and a full blown alcoholic, offered little except shouting an occasional “Awk!” at them. Deciding he would make a great Intergalactic Harpo Marx, then, Space Ace had no dialogue in the finished shooting script – except for the “Awks!”, which had to be changed on the run when the novice actor threatened to walk. There are a few unsubstantiated rumors that network censors brought the hammer down on the finished script, which resulted in it being watered down to the more juvenile-leaning end result. And if the film has one real and true fatal flaw, it’s that it didn’t abandon any pretension toward seriousness and failed to let their stars in on the fact that they were now shooting for straight-up camp.

None of the band had any acting experience, or a shooting script, apparently, as the writers scrambled and constantly re-adjusted to network demands, resulting in many scenes where KISS was brought to the set, told what to say and where to go, and that was it before the camera rolled. Apparently, most of the production was that rushed, with the script in constant flux, and nobody knew how the film was destined to end. But it did end, rather inexplicably, with Devereaux vanquished. How? Who the hell knows. All we know is that he created KISS to destroy KISS and he lost when the Super-Band engineers an escape, crashes the concert, engages in a final Big Battle with their doppelgängers, win, and then sooth the rabid crowd. They also manage to restore Robo-Sam to just plain Sam, and find Devereaux dead. I think. How? Again, who the hell knows. Movie’s over, folks, nothing more to see here.

If this goof of a film has one redeeming quality it is the work of Anthony Zerbe as the maniacal villain; and the well-regarded character actor does his best to elevate everyone around him. (He also appears to be having a ball. And Freex? He does indeed sound like he’s doing a Hans Conreid impersonation.) As for his co-stars, well, they were extremely frustrated by the experience and it shows. Things got so bad with all the changes and the constant hurry up and waiting during the troubled production that Frehley finally said to hell with it and either stormed off the set or often failed to show up for his scenes, pressing his stunt-man into double-duty as a stand-in. (Even on top of their different skin color, it’s very easy to play Ace-Not Ace, which makes for a fine drinking game.) And Criss wound up being dubbed by voice-over specialist Michael Bell in most of his scenes when he refused to show up for the looping sessions.

After its initial broadcast, AVCO-Embassy released a theatrical version of the film for the international market as KISS: Attack of the Phantoms. And I believe that altered version is what I watched via YouTube. (Some Hoyt Curtin stock incidental music was changed and I recall a lot more ‘Awking’ from Ace.] The original broadcast version did garner a home video release on VHS and I know there was an attempt at a DVD but this was quickly pulled over some rights issues and now appears to be stuck in a legal quagmire that it may never see the (legal) light of day again, which I’m sure suits the band just fine.

Before their resurgence in the 1990s, Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Fun Park sadly served as the zenith of KISS’s initial surge. After, a combination of creative differences and substance abuse found the band splitting up by 1982, with Criss and Frehley going their separate ways. Stanley and Simmons kept it together, even unmasking for a while but it just wasn’t the same. Thankfully, that has since been rectified. As for their only feature film, well, the band’s attitude toward it has softened a bit in the intervening *gack* 40 years since its broadcast. Make no mistake, it’s a mess and it is terrible but it is also a highly entertaining excursion in good intentions, wrong-headed thinking, and rock ‘n’ roll gone awry.

What is Hubrisween? This is Hubrisween. And now, Boils and Ghouls, be sure to follow this linkage to keep track of the whole conglomeration of reviews for Hubrisween right here. Or you can always follow we collective head of knuckle on Letterboxd.

KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978) Aucoin Productions :: Hanna-Barbera / National Broadcasting Company (NBC) / EP: William M. Aucoin, Joseph Barbera / P: Terry Morse Jr. / D: Gordon Hessler / W: Jan-Michael Sherman, Don Buday / C: Robert Caramico / E: Peter E. Berger / M: Hoyt Curtin / S: Peter Criss, Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Anthony Zerbe, Carmine Caridi, Deborah Ryan, Terry Lester

Movie Poster Spotlight :: Look! Up in the Sky! Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? No! It's a Super Serial! Sam Katzman's Superman (1948)

It's Superman vs. the Spider Lady in this rip-snorting serial from Columbia Pictures courtesy of Sam Katzman, Spencer Bennet and Thomas Carr. And despite the somewhat crude animation to make the Man of Steel fly, Superman was one of the best serials ever made.

Superman (1948) Columbia Pictures Corporation / P: Sam Katzman / D: Spencer Gordon Bennet, Thomas Carr / W: George H. Plympton, Joseph F. Poland, Arthur Hoerl,Lewis Clay, Royal K. Cole, Joe Shuster (comics), Jerry Siegel (comics) / C: Ira H. Morgan / E: Earl Turner / M: Mischa Bakaleinikoff / S: Kirk Alyn, Noel Neill, Tommy Bond, Carol Forman, Pierre Watkin

On the Big Screen :: Despite What You've Probably Heard, There's No Ultimate Nullifyer Required for Josh Trank's Fantastic Four (2015)

You know, Josh Trank and 20th Century Fox might've really had something with Fantastic Four (2015). As is, one can easily sense and see the two distinct and clashing sensibilities behind it, which resulted in the discombobulated mess that wound up onscreen that, for the record, is nowhere near the scorched-earth shit-pile some would have you believe it to be. It should've been, perhaps. For on one hand you had a director trying to emulate the disquieting body-horror of David Cronenberg (The Fly, Dead Ringers) and on the other you had a studio demanding a whiz-bang costumed punch-'em-up. Is it any wonder things got so ugly during the production? Still, even patched together as it was, the end result wasn't that far off and with some careful ironing over a few bumps they really and truly could've flattened it out and had it both ways. As is, it almost works. Almost, and nowhere near quite. But almost.

Now, the film we got was not the traditional Fantastic Four of Kirby and Lee, Byrne, Waid and Wieringo, or Hickman and Epting; or the myriad cartoons by Hanna-Barbera; or Tim Story's slightly botched film adaptations from the aughts; or even Roger Corman's aborted version, which, so help me, is probably the closest we'll ever get to a classic version of Marvel's First Family. No, the source inspiration for Trank's film is the Ultimate Universe of Bendis and Millar, which is a little more grounded but needling toward the dreaded and counter-intuitive grimdark nonsense that personally gives me the hives. On the bright side, this could quite possibly lead to the world's first superheroes vs. zombies flick (Marvel Zombies originated in the FF Ultimate universe, 'natch), but, judging by this weekend's box-office returns and critical drubbing of a film that seemed (forgive me) doomed from the beginning, the already announced sequel could very easily disappear and never be heard from again -- well, at least until Fox's licensing contract with Marvel comes up for renewal.

As for the film, the first major stumbling point is the choice of villain. Like with Sherlock Homes and Professor Moriarty, the first instinct is to match the Fantastic Four against their arch-nemesis, Dr. Doom. Seems like a no-brainer. But in Sherlock's case, there is no real mystery to solve if Moriarty is behind the plot. Here, I have no real problem with Victor Von Doom being involved in the construction of the matter-transporter that "creates" our heroes; I don't even have a problem with him being along for the ride when the others are hit with the cosmic radiation that grants them their powers. What I would do from there, though, would be to put him in a pocket and save him for that sequel. And so, Von Doom should've made it back with the others instead of being left for dead on Planet X like Trank did, which, quite inexplicably, seemed to be the only place the teleportation machine could connect to -- that's right, folks, a transporter that cannot be aimed but blindly lands you wherever it feels like. Woof. Paging Mr. Scott. Mr. Montgomery Scott...

To me, everything else in the film leading up to that point worked fine, with a group of socially awkward science nerds doing nerdy science things while being socially awkward, but then fell apart once the brain-trust of teenage wunderkinds, Reed Richards (Teller), Sue Storm (Mara), and Von Doom (Kebbell), with an assist from Sue's brother, Johnny (Jordan), and moral support from Reed's bestest bud, Ben Grimm (Bell), unwittingly perfect the matter-transferring machine for a secret cabal of ... who exactly, I cannot say, except they are connected to the military industrial complex. So, they're evil, and led by Dr. Allen (Nelson), also evil, whose gum-chewing sets a new standard for mustache-twirling. And when he tells them trained-astronauts will be the ones transported to the newly discovered planet, our group of upstarts is having none of that; and so, with a little liquid courage, four of them hijack the machine, port over, and start poking around the hellish alien world.

Things go awry from there, when a violent discharge of unknown energy engulfs them as they try to get back to Earth, leaving Sue, who had no idea what they were doing, to get them back home. In the film, as I said, Von Doom is left behind and presumed dead, ready to be brought back for the climax when the transporter is eventually repaired, leading to some gruesome head-popping and a truncated final battle that is both clumsy and forced and never gels properly, and then the movie's over. Well, except for that slightly embarrassing final coda.

Now, in fairness to Trank, that mess of an ending absolutely reeked of studio dickering, with an eye for franchise building, looking for that global billion dollar payday. Again, probably not gonna happen now. From what I saw, Trank's material came off as more interesting, and less of a retread, so Fox might've been better off just letting that ride as is. I guess the only other option would've been to blow it up completely and start all over. It's all kinda moot, anyways. Can't change it now. But out there, somewhere, in some alternate universe, Fantastic Four might've gone something like this instead:

Instead of Planet X, in a nod to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, their destination should've been the Negative Zone. And upon arrival, the team runs into Annihilus or something akin to the swarming Annihilation Wave, which, along with the weird energy discharge, would be the main cause for the hasty retreat back home, setting up a giant big battle for the end. Once they escape the Zone, all four surviving dimensionauts, including Sue, who was caught in the blast when the machine overloaded and exploded, are reduced to lab-rats in some secret secluded base. And while the others are stretchy, rocky, invisible, and on fire, Doom's power is yet unknown. (And nix the head-popping power for heaven's sake. And the love triangle between Reed, Sue and Victor needs to be ret-conned out of existence as soon as possible.) And when Richards escapes, Von Doom should escape with him. And with his protective gear fused to his body and face, Von Doom ignores the plea for help to find a cure for their friends, vows revenge on all involved, and the two part ways.

In Trank's film, one year magically passes, and while Reed is on the run, the other three have been trained to hone their powers for dubious purposes (think personalized weapons of mass-destruction) in return for a promised cure. Lets say the same thing happens here. Meanwhile, work continues to rebuild the transporter, despite dire warnings from the survivors of what is on the other side. All concerns are ignored by Allen over a desire for, essentially, more super-soldiers. When Reed is recaptured and brought back, he barely has enough time to convince the others that what they're doing is wrong. But he's already too late to stop the activation of the defective transporter, which essentially punches a hole into the Negative Zone and opens the door for Annihilus and his army of flying space-piranhas to invade the Earth with only four would be superheroes standing in their way who don't trust each other all that much. Biff. Bang. Pow! Sorry. I mean, "It's clobbering time!"

And once the tide is turned and the dimensional rift sealed, our new team of heroes are granted their own playhouse with a promise to step in if the world ever needs them again. And just before the credits roll, we cut to Von Doom in some slightly modified armor and see what he's been up to over the past year, which is currently finishing off a bloody coup in his native Latveria and declaring himself emperor. The end.

But this did not happen and we got what we got instead. *sigh* I know, I know, you're saying, dude, that's basically the plot of the first Avengers movie. And you'd be right. But, I figured since Fox was already aping almost everything else in that rival franchise and cramming it into Trank's movie, including a giant space laser and a dimensional rift and a massive amount of property damage, you might as well go all in. But on top of everything else it got wrong, one of the biggest sins the final cut of Fantastic Four made was to, essentially, turn Ben Grimm into nothing more than Reed Richards' Pet Rock. The digital realization of the Thing was spot on, despite the lack of pants or his rock dongle, but his wetwork clobbering were pale carbons of the Hulk smashing. The greatest part about the character is how Grimm's humanity always shined through his rough hide. And we nary get a whiff of that here. This was my only real beef with the film. One of the gripes I'd heard going in was the FF would never consent to be used by the military. Well, on that they were duped, with false promises of a cure or, worse yet, remain in the lab permanently, and in several sample jars at that, if they failed to cooperate. This wasn't the only gripe. No. This was merely the tip of the gripeberg.

One thing I haven't heard anyone complain about yet was the film's score, which can sometimes really help glue an otherwise shaky film together. Needing that kind of help desperately, I can hardly recall any music cues from Fantastic Four at all. And what I do was pretty generic and uninspiring. If each hero had a theme, I failed to pick it up. And while sorting through layer upon layer of harsh invectives and venomous reactions to the film over the weekend, everything else got pasted; from the director to the studio to the cast, who, I think, all did the best they could trying to serve both warring factions higher up the film chain. A good chunk of the regurgitated bile was leveled on Kate Mara, her tell-tale wig, and the treatment of Sue Storm. And I'd like to set a few things straight on that:

Apparently, Trank had wanted someone else for the part but the studio wouldn't budge and things went south between the two from there. I think Mara (whose character was a war orphan from Kosovo, later adopted by the Storms,) was quite brilliant in her portrayal of the introverted Sue. (Bored and wooden? I think not.) But the main complaints were not about her portrayal but over how her character, "the girl", wasn't allowed to go along on any space adventures, got left behind, and was in charge of sewing the costumes. Not to blow anyone's agenda on that, but, *thbbbtthhhhhh* For not only did Susan Storm help design and build the transporter, those "costumes" she was in charge of engineering were the environmental suits needed to withstand, basically, the rigors of outer-space. As for her not being able to go along, not having a fifth pod on the transporter is a legitimate beef but, while the boys were getting drunk and going for a hubris-fueled joyride, Sue was with her father (Cathey), fighting and failing to convince Allen to let them be the ones to use the machine first. And once she sniffed out what the "smartest men in the room" had done, Sue's the one who pulled their hash out of the fire. Sure, after that all of her character moments got really repetitive and redundant. But to be fair, so did everyone else's.

Yeah, after a pretty good first hour the film just lost its legs and then teetered and flailed toward full collapse until the end. But it was still standing when I left the theater. Barely. I don't know, perhaps my expectations, which were already pretty low to begin with, being pummeled to absolute zero might've factored in to my slightly more favorable reaction to Fantastic Four than everyone else's. But I honestly haven't seen a film so thoroughly and unjustly trashed, to this degree, since John Carter (2012) died before it even premiered. (And aside from that first twenty minutes, John Carter was, well, fantastic.) It's just not as bad as you've heard. Honest. Hell, I don't think anything could be THAT bad. I guess the best criticism I've read and the one that came closest to hitting it right on the head was this: "Fantastic Four felt like I just watched a 100-minute trailer for a movie that never happened." And while that feature-length trailer held my attention well enough, it's what could've happened that I found most frustrating.

Fantastic Four (2015) Marvel Entertainment :: TSG Entertainment :: Genre Films :: 20th Century Fox / EP: Avi Arad, Stan Lee / P: Gregory Goodman, Simon Kinberg, Robert Kulzer, Hutch Parker, Matthew Vaughn / D: Josh Trank / W: Simon Kinberg, Jeremy Slater, Josh Trank, Stan Lee (comics), Jack Kirby (comics) / C: Matthew Jensen / E: Elliot Greenberg, Stephen E. Rivkin / M: Marco Beltrami, Philip Glass / S: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey, Tim Blake Nelson