Repo! The Genetic Opera
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Repo! The Genetic Opera: A tale of routed spinal cords set to rousing musical chords. This splatter porn rock opera in *flay* minor, is sharp, incisive, and bloody good fun.
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Considering how horror films bud off generic clones like George Romero raises the dead, filmic fear mongers ought to be thrilled that sanguine sl-auteurs Terrence Zdunich and Darren Smith’s finally got their blood-drenched shock rock opera (which saw stage life 2001) into movie theaters. With Lionsgate’s backing and SAW I-V’s Darren Bousman in the director’s chair, Repo! The Genetic Opera cuts and struts its guts all over the screen, with more than occasional music, beginning November 7th.
Repo wallows in so many blood-drenched moments, in fact, that the whole film feels underwritten by the Red Cross. But it constantly elevates itself past its coppery crimson-colored conceits thanks to its singular visual style, its deliberate pacing (for which Bousman must surely take credit), and of course its wicked, cutting score, belted out by a very fine and vocally talented cast. And as an operetta, Repo’s tunes are more than just occasional; this horror film is a veritable carnival of crooning.
Now mayhem set to music is nothing new in films, even this millennia. Tim Burton’s Sweeny Todd reminded viewers how unsafe it was to wade back into the barber’s chair (at least during 19th Century England), but what Repo brings to the table is more daring and varied still: a four-color comic panel punctuated, Russo-Coenobium inspired, darkly futuristic, biological butcher-block ballyhoo set to a Jesus Christ Super Star beat, except the part of Judas now be played by a respectable fatherly doctor-cum-psycho killer. (Just listen to Anthony Stewart Head sing “Legal Assassin” and not think “Heaven on their Minds?”)
The gory story details? In a near-future world crippled by a plague of organ failures, Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino) takes it upon himself, through his company GeneCo, to save the world’s bacon… literally, by granting those who can pay a new lease on life.
That’s lease per organ, of course, terms and conditions apply. Those who can’t pay can always cheat death on credit. But even organ banks can refinance, so when GeneCo’s wealth elevates it to a world power, and introduces the privileged to the pleasures of gross elective surgery; those credit risks who can’t meet their meat payments, as it were, soon start getting calls from the Repo Man. And his terms are, literally, murder!
One such legal assassin is Nathan Wallace (played perfectly by Head), he’s
Despite his Repo identity, Nathan, a widower 17 years on, wants only to keep his daughter Shilo (Alexa Vega) safe from the ruddy, cut-crazed world beyond their gated home. He insists upon this, even, because Shilo appears to suffer from the very genetic blood condition that prematurely stuck her mother down. Nathan performs his nasty night-marring acts under Shilo’s pallid nose, but the shocking duality of his existence is beginning to take its toll them both.
Shilo, a teenage girl whose life is only her bedroom’s four walls and bug collecting, naturally starts waxing rebellious. Visits from Rotti, her favorite celebrity—and Godmother—Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman), and the enigmatic, long-haired and pretty sexy GraveRobber (essayed by Zdunich) further galvanize the girl’s longing to join the world and not just watch it.
All this occurs while Rotti’s three children: the hair-trigger hater Luigi (Bill Moseley), Face-fetishist fop Pavi (Skinny Puppy’s Ogre), and knife-addicted surgery slut Amber Sweet (Paris Hilton) squabble amongst each other for their less-than-proud papa’s DNA-dispensing dynasty. Secrets and revelations abound and are as ugly and deeply embedded as any of the entrails Nathan so luridly, and so constantly, removes, and it makes for fun story-telling. But Repo’s prized possession has to be its music; that and its top-notch cast.
Vega, with her impressive resume and Hairspray’s stage stint, gives her Shilo performance the right polish. Seeming to channel Fiona Apple as Wednesday Addams at times, she’s nonetheless very unselfconscious on the screen, and pulls off her singing duties commendably, though with less verve in general than her co-stars like Head or Brightman. A poignant exception would be “I Didn’t Know I’d Love You So Much,” which she sings with Head at the film’s conclusion. It’ll bring a lump to your throat, right past the gorge.
Sorvino’s opening moment is neither tender nor subtle, but it is brilliant. Rotti Largo’s flanked in the film by two black miniskirt-clad, assault-rifle wielding “hottie” guards; which transforms him, however unintentionally, into a bearish kind of Robert Palmer. One look at those terminatrix’, and “Might as Well Face It, You’re Addicted to Guts” will just run through your head.
As Rotti, Sorvino is Repo’s special find. He’s clearly having fun with his role, but he never fails to sing or act like a man living up to the name:
As Blind Mag, Brightman, very much the lovechild of Elvira and Stevie Nicks in this film, captivates simply by appearing on screen; but her voice, equally as stunning, doesn’t get quite the same degree of play. Mag’s two best songs in the film – “Chase the Morning” and “Chromaggia” – will bring either tears, or gouts of blood, to your eyes. But the women with arguably the most time on stage singing should have had more songs to caress with that voice. More scenes with the cool eyes wouldn’t have hurt, either.
Sweet redefines heroin chic for future SF dystopias, but it’s Hilton who really continues to redefine, and transform. Still very much the bimbo in Repo, the “celebutant” is also the film’s more exceptional finds. Rotti’s only daughter, and “knife” addict, winds up being eminently watchable. She drags around her ample sexuality like a tired dog on a leash, all the while keeping it hot and lusty. Her voice is more than up to the songs she sings, but it’s the pot shots she takes at herself and the culture of appearance in general that make her fun and watchable. She literally “loses face” in front of her father and her budding fans during her singing debut. Hilton brings a slutty freshness – if such a thing can be – to at least two of her numbers: all but saving the over-technical and flat “Zydrate Anatomy” with her vamping, and adding exactly the requisite breathy badness to the triad tirade “Mark It Up.”
Mosley as Luigi and Ogre as Pavi play their characters pretty broadly, and just a hair too incredible to tolerate at times. But in controlled doses, or in the right histrionic environments (such as during “Night Surgeon” or “Mark It Up”), they’re actually brilliant, and give Repo the right kind of comic-manic air it needs at times considering all the blood it spills.
It’s Head’s Nathan, however, who’s clearly star talent in the production. He not only belts out songs like a man a third his age, but he tweaks his role as day-time doctor, night-time necro-maniac to a fragilely perfect tension. (The switchbacks from gentle father voice to raspy Repo voice is a signature nuance… and it serves Head well in those songs were he literally Jekyll and Hydes it from one lyric to the next.)
In “Thankless Job” Nathan eviscerates a bound defaulter in a scene both chilling and shockingly hilarious. Bodies shouldn’t normally be stand-ins for muppets, but Head makes a great show of it. For a film as unreal seeming as Repo, Head’s commitment to keep his performance dark, honest and true helps raise all his scenes and songs to exceptional places: “Legal Assassin” and the aforementioned “Didn’t Know I’d Love You So Much,” being only two highlights of his impressive work in this film.
Behind the camera, credit must be given to that triumvirate of Zdunich, Smith and Bousman. Repo’s story writing is perfectly fine, though a tad spotty in places, and a little too neat in others, but the music makes up for what few sins may exist elsewhere. Smith and-or Zdunich have a good ear for lyrics, and for being able to tell a story through song (especially important in the operatic Repo). Pieces like “Chase the Morning” aren’t just good musically, they’re also compelling exchanges, and “Morning” is particularly well layered. “Legal Assassin” tells a part of Nathan’s story, but also communicates his pain, and his growing instability.
Bousman’s thoughtful directorial choices are not characteristic of his more hyper-kinetic horror films, but they serve Repo well. The design for Repo could take another article itself, it’s so… not like anything else. A perfect example being the holos of Marni that float like ghosts in their frames about the Wallace house. They’re clearly technological, yet are eerie in their depth and character. So like ghosts, Eerie.
So take it from me, before Nathan takes your eyes, see Repo: The Genetic Opera, before he gets your tongue, tell everyone about it. As for the rest, try refinancing your spleen and see if that helps.
— by Keith Olexa for Horror.com
Check out Staci Layne Wilson's early-cut review of Repo!
Please read Keith's review of the Repo! soundtrack
Click here for Horror.com's extensive "Repo! Central" coverage dating back to 2007 during filming
On-camera Interviews with the director and Cast
New! On-camera Interviews with Paris Hilton and Sarah Brightman
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