Repo! the Genetic Opera!: Review By B. Alan Orange

While at times content with aping The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Phantom of the Paradise, Repo! The Genetic Opera is really nothing more than a Goth rock version of R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet. There are no real songs. The dialogue is run through as a complete singing chorus, and every once in a while the tempo or beat will change. It is an Opera, I’ll give it that. And I did tap my feet a time or two. Alexa Vega’s rousing set piece entitled “Seventeen” is as close to a hit single as the soundtrack ever gets. But the overall weight of what is being presented on screen collapsed my brain in a weird way. Like Kelly’s magnum opus, after awhile it all started sounding like raindrops hitting a tin roof. I certainly didn’t fall asleep watching Darren Lynn Bousman’s blatant attempt at recreating a true chunk of old fashion midnight cinema, but I did experience a number of white outs. There are huge chunks of exposition that I have no recollection of. Whatsoever. The images hypnotized me. And I’m not kidding when I say: I think Repo! Gave me amnesia.

The most surprising thing about the film is that it has a pretty dense and detailed storyline. It upholds a classic structure, told in a complex yet accessibly way. The themes aren’t reaching. Its about family, loss, and redemption. Based on Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich’s original stage play, Bousman, who has directed the play live in the past, is able to bring a surprisingly elegant and artful look to the proceedings. It’s not just a gimmick. The grotesqueries on display actually have contextual merit, and in the coming years they will surely earn their rightful place on the cult circuit. Right now, critics and causal audience members alike probably won’t accept it at face value. Or entertain its ability to shuck and jive like the best in B grade cinema. This is the kind of boarded-up bloat of a pig that needs to marinate for a while in its own juices. That’s not its curse, rather it comes as a blessing. Someday people will look upon Repo! as fondly as they do any other piece of cult cinema that wasn’t completely praised or understood upon its initial release into the public.

I remember watching MTV when I was a kid, and it would send my dad into an instant outrage. It didn’t really matter what was on at the time, he just couldn’t stand to look at it. MTV drove him mad without a substantial reason for doing so. Like rock and roll, and then music videos, Repo! had a similar effect on my brain. This is what I am going to be yelling at my kid to turn off in twelve years. It’s an ear chigger that has crawled deep into my aural canal, and now it is chewing big bloody holes in my brain. Upon exit of the theater, I couldn’t help but continue to sing every last sentence that wanted to come out of my own mouth. Its infectious that way. And if I were in an elevator with you after the show, you would have gotten to hear my ugly rendition of the film’s ongoing “Medicine” refrain. I swear, if someone doesn’t sing “I need to take my medicine!” Once during the two-hour run time, they sing it a dozen or more times.

“Medicine!”

I hope this doesn’t sound like a complete slam on Darren’s otherworldly Goth tragedy. Once you overlook its own want and need to be compared to other films of its kind, you will see something quite unique and unprecedented. Even if you can’t stand to listen to its spinal column squealing like a shucked pig in the middle of the midnight hour. You have to admit that the film is very beautiful to look at. And frankly, after watching Saw IV, I didn’t think Bousman had it in him. Of course, this is all helped along by his cinematographer Joseph White, who is able to bring a gorgeous sheen to the proceedings despite some of the more hideous elements squeezed out on our faces like a turd courtesy of the screenplay. It’s shiny and black, like a willing credit card. And the reds are made of velveteen curtains that wish for you to rub your face in them. It’s all very nice and sort of cozy. Like meeting an old friend for the first time. Despite your initial feelings towards Repo!, know that you will be visiting it again. Maybe against your will. Any number of new friends or lovers, or relatives will surely heap it upon you at some point in the near future. It’s one of those ugly lost puppy dogs. You can just tell that someone is going to pick it out of the pound and love it like no other.

On paper, the story of GeneCo, the company that produces human organs and then sends Repomen out to brutally collect them once the money aspect falls through, seems rather complex and heaped. It’s an origin prologue that doesn’t quite make sense, especially if you don’t have the patience for such thick exposition. Bousman must have known the burden of this business, because he takes this potential deal breaker and turns it into one of the best aspects of the film. Instead of trying to show us how things all got started with flesh and blood, he turns to the actual comic book pages from wince this offspring begat itself. We learn how GeneCo got rolling through a series of hand drawn panels that are, dare I say it, more engrossing than the actual live film itself. Seriously, I could have watched the entire story as presented in this graphic novel form.

After learning of GeneCo’s derivation, we are quickly introduced to Repo!’s cast of real human beings. The story revolves around the Dynasty like relationship between GeneCo’s owner Rotti Largo and his three offspring Luigi (an over the top Bill Moseley), Pavi (a so-gross you almost can’t look at him Ogre, lead singer of the band Skinny Puppy), and Amber Sweet (Paris Hilton, who actually gets off a decent song or two before her face completely falls off). There is warring amongst this otherwise tightly knit family. They don’t seem to like each other very much, but they’re never more than five inches away from one another at any given time. When Rotti discovers that he is dying, he seeks out the diseased daughter (Alexa Vega) of a long lost love, and quickly forms a plan to turn her against her real dad, his own best Repoman (original stage performer Anthony Head). It’s a story full of deceit and medicine, and it all culminates at the Genetic Opera of the title.

If you’re brain is still in good working order by the time that curtain is closed on all this dastardly business, then good on you. I couldn’t see right or talk straight for days. I’m just now regaining leg strength and reacquiring my general motor skills. That must mean the film had some sort of effect on me. I think I need to see it again. Darren, White, and his entire cast get a Whoop-doo! For sheer physical ability and effort alone. But strangely, I am feeling a boo! welling up in me. I think, dear friend, that I most definitely need to see this stinging A bomb once again, or maybe even a third time, before I make any real final Judgement on it.

After all, Repo! really did give me amnesia. I can’t say that about too many films in general.

(All of B. Alan Orange’s reviews are based on the Boo! or Whoop-doo! evaluation system.)