Anthony Head

Capone wades through the blood and guts of REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA!!!

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here, with a look at one of the best kept secrets floating around the country as we speak. Last night here in Chicago, there was a one-show-only screening of REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA, a rock opera that I’d never even heard of before I got a voice mail during Comic-Con asking if I wanted to interview the film’s director, Darren Lynn Bousman (SAW II, III, and IV), and star Paris Hilton. The opportunity seemed too good to pass up, plus I know that Paris has a huge fan following among our Talkbackers. But in talking to Bousman, I began to realize that REPO! was not some overly campy musical comedy, but a genuine horror film set to thundering metal music and the occasional slip into genuine opera (thanks in large part to opera-trained pipes of Paul Sorvino).

Obviously, I withheld judgment on the film until I saw it, but I’d be lying if I said my curiosity wasn’t full on tapped. For a few months, I didn’t hear anything about REPO!, but then I began spotting references to midnight screenings or limited released in two or three cities. Shows were selling out like mad (the screening in Chicago was totally sold out), and a genuine cult was forming around this twisted film. True to form, the mainstream press got wind of this bubbling underground movement and decided to check out what all the fuss was about. Still not having seen the film myself, I began to dread the mainstream reaction, which I’d expected would be atrocious. It was. The self-professed "not fan of horror films" Ben Lyons of the socially irrelevant "At the Movies" had this to say, "This is really horrendous. I don’t know if words can describe just how awful and disgusting and insulting this movie was to watch, to make." I’m not sure how you can deduce how awful a film would have been "to make," but I digress. The worst part about the bad mainstream reviews is that the film’s distributor, Lionsgate, actually seems to care what these critics think. Lionsgate people, please understand—the people who will literally flock to this movie over and over again and make it a moderate success for you couldn’t give two, self-righteous shits about critics, including me.

First of all, my feelings on Ben "Fuck Me in my Twinkie Ass" Lyons have been clear since the first episode of the revamp/butchered "At the Movies" began, so I won’t go into that. But more than anything, the guy (and his on-screen partner) is just plain wrong, and I’ll tell you why: because he (and I’m guessing many other critics) did not see REPO! with an paying audience. I agree that a good movie is a good movie whether you’re seeing it in a massive theater with a sold-out house or watching it on Cinemax at 2a.m. But the fact is that REPO! can be best appreciated with an enthusiastic crowd, some of whom actually know the words to the songs and can’t help but sing along. The film is not some sort of audience-participation experience like THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, but it’s the closest thing I’ve seen in quite a while. I’m guessing if CANNIBAL: THE MUSICAL had gotten its initial release on a couple hundred screen, the reaction would have been similar.

I’m in no way trying to imply that REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA is flawless. It’s full of flaws: inconsistent singing (although not as inconsistent as you might think); a weird, glossy/dirty look that makes it look muddy at times; Bousman’s bondage/gadget fetish is in full effect here, as it was in the SAW films, sometimes to the detriment of the story; and the social commentary about a future where big corporations are legally allowed to repossess donated organs if the recipient doesn’t keep up on their payments is a little obvious. But what the film has going for it is far more interesting and ridiculously entertaining.

The original play’s co-creator Terrance Zdunich (who also drew the between-scene comic book panels that serve as a voiceless narration) plays a graverobber, who extracts a highly effective and wildly addictive painkiller from corpses. Sorvino is Rotti Largo, the president of GeneCo, a company that has cornered the market on organ transplants in the wake of a devastating health epidemic that killed millions when their organs stopped working. His power is so great that he pushed Congress to pass a bill making organ repossession legal. These repossession occur courtesy of the Repo Man (Anthony Stewart Head), whose involvement with the Largo family is hesitant but necessary in giving him access to medical research to help cure his ailing daughter Shilo (SPY KIDS’ Alexa Vega). Largo’s grown children are a veritable freak show of physical and emotional troubles. Paris Hilton plays Amber Sweet, who is as addicted to the aforementioned painkillers as she is plastic surgery. Each time we see her she look like a different person. Let me just inject this about Hilton. She’s not the star of this film (that would be Vega), and the handful of scenes that she’s in, she does pretty solid work at playing slutty and drugged out. The success or failure of this film does not rest on her shoulders.

Rounding out the Largo family is Nivek Ogre as Pavi Largo, who wears the removed faces of others so that we never see his actual face. He literally had this clipped on his face. It’s freaky. And the always-reliable Bill Moseley plays oldest brother Luigi, an angry SOB who kills whatever he can’t fuck and sometimes fucks what he kills. Rounding out the eclectic cast is a remarkably satisfying performance by singer Sarah Brightman as Blind Mag, a one-time blind singer who was given her sight back thanks to Largo’s organ transplant business. She is mysteriously connected to young Shilo and her father.

So here’s the biggest surprise of the film: nobody makes a fool of themselves, in front of or behind the camera. Zdunich’s source material (co-written by Darren Smith) is solid, and I’ll go on record as saying there are at least three songs here that are genuinely catchy. Now keep in mind that the word "Opera" implies that there is next to no dialog in the film that isn’t set to music, so not all of the tunes are supposed to be catchy. And considering the mix of musical styles (opera, metal, and one toe-tapper that can only be described as Avril-ish), there could have been some serious culture clashing going on here. But all of the music is put through a sort of Goth filter that makes it all mesh nicely. I was particularly impressed with Anthony Stewart Head’s as the emotionally torn doctor who must jump from overprotective father to mass murderer, sometimes in the same scene. Vega also gives us a terrific take on the confused and fragile young woman who just wants to know more about her history and her dead mother. She also belts out her songs with far more conviction and power than any of the cast of HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3.

For all of you gore lovers reading (and I know there are one or two of you), director Bousman gives us plenty of blood and guts. I mean, this is a movie about organ repossession, so it stands to reason that scalpels figure prominently in the mix. There’s a terrific musical number when Head is disemboweling a client from a gaping wound just under the rib cage. He then proceeds to reach up into the man’s now hollowed-out midsection and make the guy sing along with him like a ventriloquist’s dummy. There’s enough violence in this film to fill ten SAW movies.

I’m not one to speculate on the potential a film has for cult status somewhere down the road. I just know that REPO! is going to play a lot better with a large group of people, probably all wearing black. Like many of you, I grew up watching, absorbing, obsessing over just about any horror film I could get my hands on from any country. And as frustrated as I am with today’s American horror scene, REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA reminds me that there are still filmmakers out there with a passion for not just passionless blood and gore, but also for the bizarre and fucked up elements of certain films that made me fall in love with the genre in the first place. The biggest compliment I think I can give this movie is that I would gladly watch it again (preferably at a screening I set up), as long as it was with an audience filled with open-minded vampire wannabes. This film deserves a shot at some sort of structured limited release and not this theater-by-theater horseshit. If the film plays anywhere remotely near you, plan a road trip and see it.

And even if you decide to skip this one, please ignore every word that comes out of Ben "How Many Celebs Can I Get to Come to My Birthday Party" Lyons’ mouth. That guy is the Queen of Doucheland.