Description

We’ve been bombarded with so many bad midnight-movie wannabes, it seemed as though something truly inventive would never come. Well, REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA is the real deal, a fiercely original sideshow freakout of killer tunes and bloody mayhem unlike anything you’ve ever seen! Based on the stage play of the same name, REPO! is an industrial rock musical told entirely through song and set in a neo-Gothic future world of flesh, blood and leather. Underneath the madness is a timeless opera tale with a full cast of Shakespearean archetypes. REPO! works because its makers actually know a thing or two about opera and concentrate on characters over shock value and incessant weirdness (not that there isn’t plenty of both).

After an epidemic of organ failures ravage the planet, the greedy corporation Geneco controls the cities by selling transplants. But there’s a catch. Those who miss their payments get their organs repossessed by knife-wielding “Repo Man” Nathan (BUFFY: THE VAMPIRE SLAYER’s Anthony Stewart Head), a tragic protagonist forced to do the dirty work by greedy Geneco president Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino) in order to protect his sick daughter Shilo. On top of that, Largo is dying, and a power struggle over his empire is being waged by his three demented children (Bill Moseley, Paris Hilton and Skinny Puppy’s Nivek Ogre). Toss in a mysterious blind diva (Sarah Brightman) and a crazy, narcotics-dealing graverobber (co-writer Terrance Zdunich), and you have a recipe for absolute chaos.

Having cast off the shackles of the SAW sequels, director Darren Lynn Bousman (who also helmed the stage version) has finally come into his own as a filmmaker. No longer working with an established franchise has given him the chance to build his vision from the ground up. While it’s certainly original enough to stand on its own, its status as a bizarro opera will place REPO! alongside THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE as a cult favorite that will be revisited (and emulated) by an ever-growing legion of fans.

—Andrew Kasch, DREAD CENTRAL