Repo! The Genetic Opera (BRD – 2008)
RA / NTSC Disc
Lionsgate / 2009
Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman
Written by Darren SmitH, Terrance Zdunich
Cast: Anthony Stewart Head, Alexa Vega, Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton, Ogre, Terrance Zdunich, Bill Mosley, Paul Sorvino
Review by Chris MacGibbon
In the not so distant future, organ failure has become a worldwide epidemic. The dead begin to pile up on the streets with no end in sight; the world was coming to an end until GeneCo came and saved the day! New organs were produced and harvested to sell to save those afflicted thus the world was saved…but for a price. But if that price cannot be met, a Repo man will come and repossess the organs from those in debt taking their lives in the process. Our story follows this Repo man and his secluded terminally ill daughter who believes him to be a doctor of a different nature. Unfortunately for him and her, his secrets are revealing themselves no matter how hard he fights to keep them buried.
So I’m not ashamed to say I’m generally a big fan of musicals. Films like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Phantom of the Opera – as well as the stage play, RENT – likewise, and yes even Grease are favorites of mine and I have no shame in expressing that to, well anyone.
When I first heard about Repo! The Genetic Opera I was a little intrigued, slightly interested, didn’t look much into it. Then I heard about the cast…read more about the storyline, heard some of the music and immediately this was a film I HAD to see.
Thankfully, it did not disappoint me in the slightest. Visually it’s stunning to look at, musically it’s a hefty mix of opera (duh!), heavy metal, industrial and mixes them together with brilliant precision – basically there’s a little something here for everyone in the likes of musicals and music alike. I do have to make this perfectly clear; this is purely a musical – there is hardly any talking in the film and all of the music is dialogue, I would say out of the entire film maybe a minute of it is spoken dialogue – the rest is strictly music. This is after all an opera for the 21st Century and operas of course have hardly any spoken dialogue.
With that said I have to also point out that this was not only not a problem for me or the others watching it with me but it made the film move at a pretty steady pace. Having already known most of the soundtrack – I was mumbling along some of the words and what seemed like minutes – the film was going into the finale. It really flows well, is sung to a perfectly tuned “T” – with the talents in the likes of Sarah Brightman, Anthony Stewart Head not to mention the rest of the cast; it’s not hard to see why this is the case, and worked on every level it needed to. I really have no complaints about this film other than it did seem to run too short, I would have loved to have seen more but cannot complain with what I was given.
There also may be some people who see names like Paris Hilton and Bill Mosley attached to a musical thinking they should head for the hills and avoid this like the plague. While Mr. Mosley will be winning no academy awards for his singing voice, Ms. Hilton does pretty well with what she’s given and honestly comes off the way she’s supposed to. They, along with the other actors, play and sing their parts very well – so don’t let their names, or any of the others for that matter, make you shy away from this film.
Oh yeah it’s probably also fair to mention that gorehounds shouldn’t be too disappointed with this “genetic opera” as there’s plenty of the red stuff flying around, I mean what would you expect from the producers of Saw?
If you’re not a fan of musicals, Repo! The Genetic Opera may not be for you. As I said it’s purely a musical and less of a feature film. Think Sweeney Todd but with no talking in between the musical numbers. However, it doesn’t play like a normal musical either. As I said its 97 minute running time goes by rather quickly and the music has enough style and power to please horror fans and musical fans alike. With that said it also works as a horror film with vicious kills, unexpected twists, gratuitous nudity, and splashes of gore. So I cannot see it disappointing horror fans or musical fans – with the exception of the little old ladies who dig West Side Story, that group may want to shy away from this sort of film but then again, one never knows!
