Anthony Head

REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA

If ever there was a film that wasn’t made for me, this is it. But strangely enough, it isn’t a film I particularly dislike or even hate. It just plum isn’t for me. And frankly it isn’t going to be for a lot of people. This isn’t just a cult film. It is a film that ASPIRES TO BE a cult film, something that rarely, if ever, works. This is that rare one that does. You’ve never seen of its like – you could watch a thousand movies and never meet another of its kind. Strange, off-kilter and almost entirely hypnotic – even if you’re not feeling it, you still can’t for a moment take your eyes off of it.

Imagine if you will, Joss Whedon writing an Andrew Lloyd Webber spoof of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and you begin to get an idea of what this is. Do not let the title fool you as it is in no way simply being clever. It IS an Opera. Almost every word is sung, with entire patches of emotion and back story painstakingly described in lyrical verse. Musically this is a cross between the Once More with Feeling episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Phantom of the Opera along with hints of Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and patches of Tom Waits thrown in to create a gothic carnival-like atmosphere. Which this readily achieves.

Now add to that the notion that this is directed by the guy who made the last 3 Saw movies, and it begins to sway feverishly into Sweeny Todd territory. It’s bloody, gross and often downright macabre. The world is a dystopian future where the bodies of man began to deteriorate at a much faster rate and one corporation has stepped up to create genetically perfect organs for the masses…at a price. And what happens when you run late on your bill? Repossession, with every effort spared to keep the debtor alive. And if that isn’t dark enough for you, let me introduce you to our narrator, a man who drains a liquid anesthesia out through the nose of corpses. Yeah. It’s not exactly a pleasant feel good movie.

This film has a very specific audience. The RHPS watching, Tim Burton doll collecting, Vampire the Masquerade playing crowd. And they are going to eat this up like it was their Star Wars: Episode One. Already fans are showing up to these screenings in costume, singing along with the movie. I recognized a few folks last night from my misspent youth in the local RHPS scene – they’d purchased tickets to attend both shows. And they loved every moment of it. They were giddy and bouncing around, salivating for their second round with the savory goofy deliciousness of it all. And if this sounds like your cup of tea, holy god you are going to have a mad, passionate love affair with this. Hot Topic will be carrying T-shirts, soundtracks, lunch boxes and special edition DVDs from here until Gehenna.

However, if that combination sounds more like a misbegotten mishmash of pop culture into one grotesque pile of stolen body parts sewn into a rotting Frankenstein of a film – well, you aren’t far off from the reaction you’re going to have to this. But by no means does that mean you should miss it. Darren Lynn Bousman has created an entirely unique world, a completely original nightmare woven of Victorian era style, end of the world imagery and modern goth sensibilities. It is a low budget dystopian feverdream that embraces its limitations and instead uses them to create a look and feel unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. As a movie lover, this is one of those films you pretty much owe yourself to see just once – even if it is just to see the style in which it was done. This film just didn’t connect with me – but then again, having spent many years floating about with the crowd this was made for, I can honestly say that I’m pretty far removed from the target audience. It never really clicked and I was left to simply enjoy the costume, set design and the original way the film unraveled. But to its credit, it never annoyed me, urged me to walk out or came across in any way as pretentious – which considering the material and audience it was shooting for, it very well could have.