Silliness, Nostalgia, and kitsch (I mean, KISS...)

Rating: 5/10 (1 September 2008)

This is a pretty decent coming-of-age, road-trip, dumb male friends, stoner, flashback to an era of kitsch movie. It's pretty simple: four teenage friends in a band want to go see KISS pretty much more than anything in the world, and they're pretty much willing to fight mothers, hall monitors, bullies, other metal heads, disco-lovers, and kindly church-going folk to do it, meanwhile employing such tactics as stripping, fighting, spiking pizza, getting girls, and sicking dogs to do it. The Joke, as it were, is that it's 1978, it's Ohio, and these young hooligans just want to smoke pot, get laid, and see their favorite band live for once in their lives.
One thing that's kind of annoying about these nostalgia flicks is how focused characters that represent the generation are on a single influence. In this case, the plot revolves around KISS, and yet there's a certain level to which it really is questionable that these kids have nothing else to talk about. Except for in-jokes and a melange of era rock music, there's really not much world-building that gives this movie a particularly late-70s aura. Instead, it's pretty much a single punch-line: remember when KISS was cool and parents thought they were Satanic? Wasn't that funny? Yeah, yeah, it was.
But still... you get to see Edward Furlong, pre-American History X, post-Terminator 2, throw up into a pitcher. You get to see a kid hold off an armed robber with a Stretch Armstrong. There's no end to silliness and laughs as long as you're willing to deal with mostly stupid characters and remember those glory days when you thought KISS was awesome, too (or, if you're like me and weren't around then, imagine it based on this movie's representation of it). Oh, and being from a place like Ohio helps. No, really.
There are better movies with the same kind of humor out there, but that doesn't necessarily mean that this movie should be discarded. For what it's worth, at the moment it's in discount bins practically everywhere and can be acquired for some cheap entertainment with friends and beer pretty much whenever you want. I wouldn't necessarily pass it up if silliness, nostalgia, and KISS music is what you're into.
--PolarisDiB