Repo! The Genetic Opera is A Sensory Feast and B-Movie Cult Classic in the Making
Repo! The Genetic Opera may have its flaws but still packs a punch with enough coal-black humor, gore, violence, sex, and great performances to create an original, distinctive experience that just might become the cult, audience-participation gem it seems to want to be.
Written by BHM Contributor James "Crypticpsych" Lasome
November 24, 2008
Watch the Repo! The Genetic Opera Trailer!
Release: November 7, 2008 (Limited U.S.)
Directed by: Darren Lynn Bousman
Written by: Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich
Starring:
Alexa Vega as Shilo Wallace
Paul Sorvino as Rotti Largo
Anthony Head as Nathan Wallace/Repo Man
Sarah Brightman as Blind Mag
Paris Hilton as Amber Sweet
Bill Moseley as Luigi Largo
In 1975, a film adaptation of a stage musical was released, very limitedly, in eight cities around the country. Critics generally panned it and the film was initially a box-office flop. Now, 33 years later, that film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, is still in a limited theatrical release (the longest of any film ever), has a rabid (to say the least) fan base, has made more than 100 times its estimated original budget in box office grosses, and (in 2005) was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry in the Library of Congress alongside such films as The Wizard of Oz, Dr. Strangelove, Citizen Kane, and Psycho.
Also 33 years later, Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw 2 - 4) would direct an adaptation of a futuristic stage rock opera, Repo! The Genetic Opera. It has been released theatrically,
very limitedly, in seven theaters across the country and will then go on a road tour Bousman put together. Generally, non-genre critics have panned it, and to say that it has received minimal mainstream publicity by its movie studio Lionsgate would be an overstatement. Now, I’m not stupid enough to claim this movie is as good as Rocky Horror or even that as strong a cult following could form. But the originality of the film and the huge crowds (some of whom in costume already) I saw at the screening make me think the elements could be there for something big.
In the near-future, an epidemic of organ failures strikes the world. The GeneCo Company rises out of the chaos, offering low-cost organ transplants and affordable payment plans. Over time, the success of this makes its owner, Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino), extremely wealthy. However, unbeknownst to the world, Rotti is terminally ill and wishes to give the reins of his company to one of his less-than-worthy children: either the murderously psychopathic Luigi (Bill Moseley), the narcissistic, women’s face-wearing Pavi (Ogre of Skinny Puppy fame) or the spoiled, painkiller and surgery addicted Amber Sweet (Paris Hilton). Meanwhile, a seventeen-year-old girl with a rare blood disease named Shilo (Alexa Vega) is kept hidden by her overprotective father Nathan (Anthony Stewart Head) who sees himself as her protector since she is all that remains of his late wife. Nathan hides a horrible
secret, however, as he works for Rotti as a Repo Man, brutally “repossessing” the organs and parts of people who don’t meet payments on their transplants.
Rotti later decides that Nathan’s daughter could be worthy of running the company and tries to lure her into his trust behind Nathan’s back with promises of the cure for her disease. All will come to a head at GeneCo’s famed Genetic Opera where their contracted singer Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman) will be giving her final performance.
Repo! The Genetic Opera is a rock opera. As such, there is very little dialogue and the musical numbers, singing, and performances carry the show. In general, the songs are quite well done, running a wide range from love ballads and comedic songs to hard driving rock/metal/punk anthems with at least one classical opera number. The lyrics are memorable, including both intentional black comedy and unintentionally humorous moments that occur when a character sings a seemingly mundane line. Even Joan Jett makes an utterly random cameo to play guitar during one song that seems both out of place and perfectly normal at the same time, a testament to the movie’s manic nature.
The quality of the singing in the movie isn’t perfect but is generally good. Vega starts off uneven but builds throughout the movie into a great voice. Head and Brightman are fantastic with the former being able to switch from a bloodthirsty rage to a softer smoother style and the latter being the only classically-trained professional opera singer in the cast. Hilton, subject of much fanboy hate when news of her casting was announced, is able to nail her role quite well, even if her singing is still generally only about as good as her ill-fated solo album. Moseley, unfortunately, is the worst of the singers, but as his role is insanely and hilariously over-the-top he becomes one of the key players in the movie regardless.
Head and Vega give brilliant emotional performances, as does the Graverobber, played by Terrance Zdunich as the story’s sort-of-narrator and street drug dealer who fills in the blanks for the characters and audience.
The gore in Repo! The Genetic Opera is well-done from removal of intestines and backbones to eye-gouging and throat slashing. There is even a strand of brilliant dark, morbid humor that runs through much of the film. For example, at one point Head sings a song called “Thankless Job” while he works over one of his victims. Right in the middle of the song, he actually shoves his arm into the wound he’s opened up in the corpse and operates him like a morbid ventriloquist puppet singing the song with him!
Stylistically, the heavily- industrialized, bleak world of this future society is perfectly done in dark colors that fit well. Certain songs appropriately use more crazed lighting styles, brighter colors, and Bousman?s “music-video style” camera work, but generally, the film stays within a well-realized industrial dystopia?a demented, mechanized Moulin Rouge, if you will. Thankfully, Bousman rarely, if at all, resorts to the hypercam that became synonymous with the Saw films and plagued his entry in the series Fear Itself. Also, in a very appropriate EC- Comics- style move, the film sometimes uses comic panels to link the story together. The panels are never out of place and are an effective way to give the audience necessary exposition.
Overall, Repo! The Genetic Opera may not pull sold-out midnight showings every night for the next third of a decade and probably won’t reach the Library of Congress. But at the very least, this spectacularly twisted Grand Guignol dark fairy tale is unique, memorable, fun, and demands to be seen and embraced for the b-movie, cult-classic in the making that it is. Questions or comments about Repo! The Genetic Opera? Discuss it on The Ossuary Forums!
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