Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

Directed by: Darren Lynn Bousman

Written by:  Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich  

Starring: Alexa PenaVega, Anthony Head, Paul Sorvino, Sarah Brightman, Terrance Zdunich, Paris Hilton, Bill Moseley and Nivek Ogre

Happy Day-Before-Halloween! 

I thought I'd blog about a movie that hasn't been talked about as much as it should have. Repo! The Genetic Opera. Repo was a small little film that had hardly anything going for it in the beginning. The director of Saw II-V, Darren Lynn Bousman wanted to do this movie for some time. It took him several years to finally get the green light for Repo. Highly inspired by 70's rock opera musicals and old fashioned horror, he decided to combine the two, making it a Rocky Horror Picture Show on steroids.

In the future... bodyguards are HOT!

20 years before this movie took place the world suffered a major catastrophe. Widespread organ failure infected the globe. Millions die, but out of the terror comes a savior, GeneCo. GeneCo has mastered a way to create artificial organs that function just like real ones. At first people rejoiced. The organ failure epidemic ended and Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino), the owner of GeneCo, became the most powerful man in the world. Unfortunately, the joy GeneCo brought was soon overturned by the horror they inflicted upon those who have their organs. If someone is unable to pay, GeneCo will send a Repo Man to 'collect' their property. Now it's the year 2057, we follow a widowed doctor Nathan (Anthony Head) who is taking care of his ill daughter, Shiloh (Alexa PenaVega). Soon Shiloh finds out that the world beyond her bedroom is a dangerous place full of secrets, secrets that can destroy the life she has come to know. 

Stranger danger!

Repo! is based on the 2002 play The Necromerchant's Debt which eventually evolved into Repo! The Genetic Opera, released the same year. Both pieces of work were written and composed by Darren Smith and Terranc Zdunich. The plays were such a hit, Smith and Zdunich added more characters, plot lines and songs. They eventually made a 10-minute short film and sent it to various studios. Eventually, Lionsgate picked it up and production started in 2007. 

You're obviously paying those girls to touch you. You ain't foolin' nobody!

The result is a highly stylized horror-musical. It's like The Rocky Horror Picture show mixed in with SAW with a little dash of Wizard of Oz. The entire movie is beautiful to look at. The CGI is done well, but it's really the sets that make this movie so good! It's a futuristic, post-apocalyptic, Gothic looking world with dead bodies piled in the graveyards and drug addicts who will do anything to get their fix. This world that's created for us is a society that's obsessed with genetic perfection and addicted to plastic surgery. People in this society seek out a highly addictive drug called Zydrate to help them with the pain, sometimes the cost is too high and they must seek out Grave Robbers who extract the drug from dead bodies. I love the idea of plastic surgery being the new fad. Instead of using eyeliner to help change the shape of your eye, people actually go to surgeons and get the shape of their eye changed! This is an extreme society. 

She's going for the Courtney Love meets Ke$ha look.

The musical sequences are carried out beautiuflly. The entire movie is pretty much a musical sequence, but I'm talking about the main songs like Zydrate Anatomy and Chase the Morning. Both of these numbers are impressively done. 

Somebody call Dr. Phil! This family issues.

The characters are so well written and they are all exceptionally acted. I have to give a shout out to Paris Hilton. When I first heard she was in it I was skeptical, even the director refused to see her for the role, but Paris won it. Her character has become a victim of the times, she plays a plastic surgery obsessed rich girl who is addicted to Zydrate. The role isn't really that big of a stretch for Hilton to play, but the fact that she was down to do a movie like this made me happy. 

So many feathers!!!

My favorite actress in the movie was Sarah Britghtman. This was her film debut and she stole every scene she was in. She plays a famous opera singer who is trapped by the evil GeneCo into a contract so she can keep her eyes. She realizes how she has pretty much sold her soul. Her character is extremely tragic and she plays it beautifully. Terrance Zdunich does an excellent job as the Graverobber.It was actually Zdunich who did art for the entire movie and wrote the songs. He's all up in this shit! Alexa Vega(now PenaVega) proved in this movie that she's ready for more serious roles. She plays the role of Shilo, a girl trapped by an illness who accidentally discovers the dangerous world lying behind the safety of her walls. The actual Repo Man is played by Anthony Stewart Head (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame.), and he is fucking spectacular! He plays the role so legit I can't even handle it. It's almost like he's this Clark Kent character. He's this normal, nerdy looking guy, who changes into the Repo Man whenever he's called to do so. He also belts out tunes like a pro. Paul Sorvino is fantastic as the evil. but fading CEO of GeneCo. Nivek Ogre and Bill Moseley play fine villains, they just didn't stand out to me.


If you don't like musicals, you're not going to like Repo!. Every line is a song. If you like both horror and musical, you don't have to chose anymore! Repo! has you covered... in blood! No literally, by the end of this movie, it's a literal blood bath. Be warned that this movie is extremely gruesome too. I mean, I would hope that you'd get that from the plot. It's about a guy repossessing organs, there's going to be a drop or two of blood. GET OVER IT!

Yummy.

Remember kids, stay off Zydrate! 

Or this could be you!

For more information of Repo! The Genetic Opera visit their IMDB page.