‘Repo! The Genetic Opera’ Movie Review

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Cast: Anthony Stewart Head, Alexa Vega, Paul Sorvino, Paris Hilton, Bill Mosely

Plot: At an unspecified time in the future and unspecified plague almost pushed the human race to extinction. A company called GeneCo rose to power having perfected artificial organ transplants, selling them to the majority of the population on a repayment scheme. If the customer fails to make payment a repo-man will reclaim the organs in as messy a manner as possible. GeneCo has also developed a highly addictive pain killer that has developed a strong street trade with drug dealers/grave robbers extracting the drug from corpses. As the head of GeneCo faces the end of his life his three children compete to be his sole heir. The main story follows Shilo, born with a rare blood disease she was watched over by her protective father who, after being blackmailed by the head of GeneCo, is secretly working as a repo-man. And there’s a blind girl who features somehow.

Review: As a teacher of cinema I champion the philosophy that a simple idea done well is preferable to a complex idea mishandled, especially for inexperienced film-makers. This, being the second feature film for Bousman (following Saw II) has a needlessly complicated plot as evidenced by the summary above (regular readers will remember that our usual summary is two lines long. Not that a complex plot could be developed out of the idea of organs being repossessed, but none of the plot threads develop beyond their initial concept. Instead of moving the plot forward in any capacity Bousman simply introduces a new thread that often has little to no relation with the previous plot thread.

The setting makes abrupt shifts and new characters get dropped into the fray without solid introductions and since very few of them develop we wind up with a large cast who mostly just bump around the scenes until the next plot thread is brought in. When it runs out of ideas for the current act we jump to a comic-book drawn flashback that spells out the character motivations with what amounts to flashcards (almost as though the very concept of cinema is lost to the director). The script for this movie could’ve been outlined on a single napkin soaked in bong water for all the nuance and subtlety it shows.

Not that this has to be a bad thing. Moulin Rogue! and The Rocky Horror Picture Show both forsake substance for style to great effect. Repo! The Genetic Opera clearly models itself after these two successes. And fails miserably.

Both of the above offerings had a unique style that remained consistent throughout the film. Repo! can be seen as having either no style or way to much style, depending on how generous you’re being. The movie is awash with garish colour, deep shadows, wacky costumes and lavish make-up – all of which clashes horribly. The movie is akin to House of 1000 Corpses – which I once described as a technicolour vomit – but without the subtlety. There’s flashes of German Expressionism but not enough to make you think that is was done deliberately, other than that the film throws every quirk it can muster at you in the hope of being branded ‘cult’. Not even the violence works with the rubbery organs providing nothing approximating the expected response.

Talent wise there’s a couple of good performers who are completely wasted here. Anthony ‘Giles’ Head looks like he’s having fun but is embarrassing himself. We’ve got a few familiar faces from cult horror films but they’re wasted. Paul Sorvino is the most tragic. Worst of all is Paris Hilton, clearly a case of stunt casting, being cast as a spoilt heiress who gets addicted to plastic surgery only for her face to fall off.

This actually came highly recommended to me from a group of people. If you move in geek circles you no doubt have encountered some of them. People who try their damnedest to be the ‘biggest’ fan. The ones who want everyone to know how ‘weird’ and ‘shocking’ they are. If you haven’t met them you must’ve heard them during a screening of Harry Potter at the cinema – they were the ones doing the pantomime level gasps whenever a new character appeared because they were just so overcome with emotion upon seeing one of their ‘favourite characters who mean so much to me’. Someone actually burned a copy of this film and posted it to me because they were so scandalised that I hadn’t seen it yet. This dross is almost custom made for such people – folks who aren’t interested in quality or being challenged but wants something that they can obsess over just to prove how crazy they are.

Finally we have the music. For an opera there’s a total lack of catchy tunes. Don’t expect to be humming, or even remembering, them after the movie has run its course. It attempts to be depraved, but comes across as cheap. As much as it strives to have some depraved artistry to it, such as Anti-Christ, Oldboy or the works of Takashi Miike but doesn’t come close. Amateur film-making at its worst.

Score: TWO outta TEN