Pretty Good

Powerful

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

You had to be there when the original VHS was released in the '80's to appreciate the DVD release. As a die-hard fan going all the way back to '76 getting any KISS video footage was a dream come true.Even the days before Beta & VHS started to emerge the quest to somehow get KISS on film was there.In the mid-eighties I hooked into the KISS bootleg VHS pipeline. The problem? Bad quality, multi-generational dubs that resulted in barely watchable material. If you weren't at the top of the KISS bootleg food chain back then you were at the bottom.Then KISS Exposed was announced that gave some promise to die-hard fans getting at least some quality video direct from the band itself. There were radio commercials, magazine ads that announced the soon arrival of the first official KISS video to have lots of makeup footage included.Then the release date got pushed back! Yep that's right even back in the early days of video releases KISS started off with pushing back release dates.When it finally came out it was worth the wait at least for the older makeup footage. Now you really had to be a 'Fridays' fan to appreciate Mark Blankfield's humor and role here. But even with the totally cheesy acting and bogus story of Paul's mansion (it was NOT!) and none of the autos in the front were even owned by any of the members. The scantly clad women everywhere were just nothing more than set dressing to emulate a party lifestyle.It would have been much better just to present it straight forward like the KISSOLOGY sets but I guess the band felt they needed to be 'in it' trying to convey some kind of 'Rock Star' lifestyle and humor.But it is what it is, I enjoy the humor and you just have to kinda laugh at what the band was trying to do good or bad. The fact that Eric and Bruce were mostly absent from it was probably a good thing for them I'm sure they never minded about that seeing how cheesy it got.Some of the live footage at the time was not embedded heavily in the bootleg market at the time. So seeing the single snippets on Exposed threw us video hungry maniacs into a frenzy.One in particular was the San Francisco Winterland B&W live footage. But not long after Exposed was released it made it's way into bootleggers hands.Also having actual non-makeup MTV style videos with stereo audio was a plus for those of us that didn't have cable/MTV so we could tape them from television.So I was more than glad to see Exposed finally make it to DVD after having to wait for the original VHS release back then. The DVD brings better quality to the table not to mention the ability to just play the video's and skip all the malarkey.Even with it's cheesiness it's still a great addition to the KISS video catalog. It was my first volume of KISSOLOGY so to speak back when it was originally released. It was one of those things you thought the band would never actually do. So most of us thought we were stuck with the inferior quality from the bootleg market. Exposed gave us hope that things would improve.It was not the end all KISS video but it does have a lot of nostalgia for me. So I give it an 8 for the video content alone and what it represented to us fans back in the '80's.Later video releases like 'Konfidential' & 'KISS My A**' had sub-standard footage quality compared to what the bootleg market offered in some cases. That fact was somewhat strange. Exposed serves as the first official video acknowledgment by the band of the makeup years and so is part of KISSTORY!

This mockumentary about rock legends Kiss has Mark Blankfield playing a nerdy interviewer who is invited by Paul Stanley for a tour around Paul's mansion. During the tour, we meet guitarist Bruce Kulick, drummer Eric Carr and of course, Gene Simmons. There is plenty of 80's music videos for songs such as "Lick It Up" and "Heaven's On Fire". Also, there is a lot of archive footage of the band's early performances, where they play "Deuce", "Strutter", and many other fan favourites live. Look out for one of Gene's typical demonic blood spitting, and an amazing solo from Ace where his guitar... well, you'd better just see it for yourself. Overall, I found this great fun, and Kiss fans should love it. Non-Kiss fans should give it a look too, as I showed a few friends Kiss eXposed and they enjoyed it (but maybe that was for the bikini-clad beauties that are seen frequently. Oh well.)

This movie of the making of a documentary was a great idea to show the "monsters" behind the makeup. Kiss is the kind of band no one would ever really think of having a movie but there was and are. Kiss eXposed has great footage of old stage performances and music videos. Gene Simmons is just as hot as always and Paul is right there beside him. I think Eric and Bruce could have been in more shots but it was just great seeing them. The movie has its interesting parts you'd never know about the band and the parts that send your chair backwards from laughing. Gene and Paul's stories about meeting add to the fun of the movie. Overall if your as huge a Kiss fan as me, I'm sure you'll enjoy the movie.

If you really want to see a movie with Kiss in it, don't rent that 1978 turkey "Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park". Rent this instead. Mark Blankfield plays a TV interviewer who spends a day in Paul Stanley's mansion to see what makes him and the other members of Kiss tick. What makes the movie appealing are the videos, concert footage and all those luscious babes in bikinis! The big drawback is that the interviewer only speaks to Paul and Gene Simmons, while Eric Carr and Bruce Kulick are left in the woodwork. Maybe Eric and Bruce weren't comfortable with speaking on camera yet...I don't know.Rating: **1/2