Phantom of the “Opera”: Review for “Repo! The Genetic Opera”

It is deathly depressing, but we live in a world where there are hundreds of people who go to see the newest horror movie simply to see someone get chopped up right one right after the other. There are crowds of perfectly sane human beings going to see torture porn films and treat them like strange marvels of the cinema. These films, films such as Hostel, Saw (not the first one, though), and similar straight-to-DVD rip offs offer the same crowd new ways to get their kicks to beheadings and splatters. So what does Darren Lynn Bousman, the man who made a particularly chilling suspense film into the crappiest franchise called the Saw series, decide to offer this world in need of smart and scary films? A torture porn musical! What a brilliant idea! A horror musical, some bizarre hybrid of one laughable genre and one mystical genre. That is all we needed. He decided to make a weird off-Broadway “opera” into a movie and while the original already had salacious language and blood in it, Mr. Bousman added his Saw II flair by adding blood, blood, gore, gore, and even more blood and gore.

Repo! The Genetic Opera takes place in 2056 and in a world where organ failure has become a world wide epidemic. 26 years before, a company called GeneCo begins selling organs to those in need. For those who cannot afford to pay all at once, they offer a payment plan. If you miss a payment, GeneCo sends out the Repo Man, a man who is allowed by law to take back the organ you bought. This company is run by a ruthless man named Rotti Largo (a warbling Paul Sorvino) and his three surgery addicted children, Amber Sweet (Paris Hilton, talentless as usual), in need of anger management Luigi (Bill Moseley), and an ever face changing Pavi (played by some guy named Ogre).

So, aside from that strange plotline, the Repo Man (Anthony Stewart Head) ha s a daughter named Shilo (Alexa Vega), whom he overprotects. He goes around parading that he is a doctor working for GeneCo while she is stuck in her room with a blood disease that is hereditary. So, when Daddy goes to work as a doctor, he’s really going to work to cut people up and take back organs. Yay! Her mother is dead and she’s bored, so you’re just asking for her to go running about town. And there’s this character called the Grave Robber who narrates the story with the help of comic book transitions. This character is eerily similar but not nearly as entertaining to the Emcee in Cabaret.

The weirdest part, if it isn’t already turning you away, is that a high class performer and professional opera singer like Sarah Brightman (ex-wife of the ;legendary Andrew Lloyd Webber) would act in such a bizarre and awful film like this. She plays Blind Mag, The Voice of GeneCo, a beautiful opera singer who lost her vision and got corneas from GeneCo. But the saddest part of the film that it took and perfectly heartbreaking ending and ruined it with violence.

The strangest part of the never ending storylines is that unshockingly they are interconnected. Repo Man, a.k.a. Nathan, married Marni who Rotti wanted to marry and was the best friend of Blind Mag. Marni left for Nathan, Rotti vowed vengeance, yada yada yada. The film is wildly predictable and incessantly bizarre. It’s one of the worst “musicals” I have ever seen, if you can call it that. Yes, there’s music. The entire film contains music with strange and bad lyrics by characters who have bad voices.  This is a strange and bloody film, filled with terrible acting and an even worse storyline and not worth any of your time.

Grade: D-

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