Repo The Genetic Opera

A Special Report by Kellie and Benny Hell:

In 2056 a series of organ failures rapidly becomes an epidemic, leaving the world devastated. In it’s wake rises GeneCo; -a shady organ transplant company headed by Paul Sorvino as Rotti Largo (it’s president). It offers organ replacements for a price, and when that price fails to be met, GeneCo takes them back through the dark dealings of it’s ‘Repo Men,’ a group of skilled contract assassins. Surgery addiction, and widespread chemical dependence on a painkilling drug, Zydrate, plunge society into a technologically fuelled moral Dark Age in which murder is sanctioned by law, and GeneCo is at the heart of everything. In the midst of all of this, Repo: follows the story of Shilo Wallace (played by Alexa Vega), an innocent seventeen year old, sheltered by her father (a secret Repo Man, played by Anthony Head) due to a rare inherited disease. The story focuses primarily on Shilo’s search for information on her family, and her disease, which leads her into the softest spots on GeneCo’s malevolent underbelly.

Also starring Nivek Ogre (of Skinny Puppy fame), Paris Hilton (A Night in Paris), and Bill Moseley (House of 1000 Corpses) as the children of Rotti Largo, the characters of this movie show a surprising amount of typecasting. Paris, Bill, and Ogre have very short parts in the movie as its main foci are Rotti, Shilo, and her Repo Man father. Paris plays a spoiled rich kid, Ogre plays a womanizer, and Bill plays a murderous psychopath… gee, I wonder how ever they were able to get into character. Paris Hilton runs a support network for people who are addicted to Zydrate, yet she is addicted to Zydrate herself. Bill and Ogre are constantly fighting with each other over who should inherit Daddy’s company, since Rotti found out in the beginning of the film that he is going to be dead soon and no organ transplant will save him. Blind Meg was marvelously played by operatic chanteuse Sarah Brightman, whose costumes were amazing.

The Repo Man was so convincing that you’d be surprised this wasn’t a big budget multi-million dollar revenue earner after release… oh wait, there hasn’t been a real release… It has an well-known cast; a decent, if tongue-in-cheek, plot directed by Saw II, III, and IV director Darren Lynn Bousman, and written by illustrator, Terrance Zdunich (who plays “Graverobber,” a total hottie), and Darren Smith (who wrote the score and plays the band leader); and received a fair amount of sub-cultural fanfare through the Internet. With backing by Twisted Pictures (The Saw series) and Lions Gate Films, it’s a wonder why this movie hasn’t done well financially… but it hasn’t in the least. It premiered on November 7th, 2008, on eight small screens in the U.S. and in Toronto, but brought in a sad amount on it’s opening day. While the total revenue generated by this film isn’t readily available as a figure, it seems that the companies behind it, Twisted and Lions Gate respectively, failed to push this as a viable product, leading it to be submerged beneath the weight of ‘respectable’ films.

While I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, I can say that the music (everyone had amazing voices!), artistic approach, and feel of the movie are all A+ and worthy of further exploration. I walked in with the impression that this was a modern “Rocky Horror Picture Show” geared toward the Goth crowd, and walked out amazed at it’s quality, and the relative obscurity it’s been met with since it’s release.

Lions Gate seems to have decided that Repo is not worthy of promotion or a theatrical release, and have sent it straight to video. The creators of Repo spent months trying to get it into theatres by themselves, contacting independantly owned theatres accross the country and doing a tour with the film. Terrance and Darren both attended every screening across the U.S., taking questions from the fans afterwards, and doing a meet and greet with anyone who waited in line to meet them. Their dedication and drive to this movie alone was inspiring and made me want to help them promote in any way I could.

You can find more theatre showings, and more information at the Repo The Genetic Opera site.

Shortlink:

Posted by Kellie on December 3, 2008. Filed under Blue Blood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry