In a time when it feels like our world is slipping into chaos and the future of dystopian fiction seems more and more likely, there’s a certain comfort in watching or reading about the hope that springs from the darkness of those times. It might even be inspiring to see the ragged hero overcome their societal suppression and triumph over adversity. Repo! The Genetic Opera is about as dystopian as it gets, and while there are themes in this movie that might hit close to home in today’s world, there is more to take away than it might seem.
Released as a film in 2008, Repo! The Genetic Opera began life as a stage play prior to its wider release on the silver screen. As the title suggests, this is an opera, so 99% of all dialogue is sung. However, in a clever bit of titling the opera is also the Opera, an annual event in the film hosted by the evil corporation, GeneCo, that is the focal point of each character’s journey. In the word of Repo! it’s 2056 and planet has been ravaged by a deadly pandemic that causes random organ failure. The previously mentioned megacorp, GeneCo, “saved the day” by offering life-saving organ transplants… At a steep price. If you miss a payment on your organs, they send a repo man to take them back.
Spoilers ahead.
The cast of characters in this story are as unique as the premise. First, we have our lead, Shilo. She’s an innocent seventeen-year-old girl with a blood disease she inherited from her late mother and is trapped indoors by her seemingly overbearing father, Nathan. Her mother died in childbirth (or so Shilo is told) and our heroine sneaks out at night to visit her mother’s grave via a secret passage from her home to the cemetery. Here she meets the defacto narrator of the story, the Graverobber, who extracts a fluid called Zydrate from corpses to sell on the streets as a pre-surgery drug. Shilo and the Graverobber’s relationship is not really developed at all beyond him appearing at certain points to lead Shilo to where she needs to be so she can slowly learn what’s going on in the outside world. First, it’s the mass grave in the cemetery, then later he helps her sneak out of a (admittedly poorly guarded) tent so she can learn about the drug, Zydrate, and its effects on the populace. It works as a plot-forwarding device, but it is definitely a byproduct of this having been a stage musical.
Shilo, sneaking out to be with her mother.
Next, we have our cast of villains, which is the majority of the characters in this film (including, technically, the previously mentioned Graverobber). Shilo’s father, Nathan, is the Repo Man. He’s a legal assassin who tortures his victims before killing them to collect their purchased organ (discernable by a GenCo UPC code stamped on the organ). He’s revels in his work, but deep down he’s a reluctant killer, as he’s been forced into this work by Rotti Largo, who secretly poisoned Nate’s wife, Marni, after she left Rotti for Nate and convinced Nate HE killed her in a botched attempt to cure her blood disease. Rotti is able to do this because he’s the “savior of humanity” and the owner of GeneCo. He wields all the power in the world, but all that power can’t save him from his rapidly spreading terminal illness. He needs to find an heir to GeneCo and the obvious candidates, his own children, are (to put it mildly) real pieces of work.
First, we have Luigi, the eldest, played by the legendary Bill Moseley. Luigi is a business man, yes, but has a powder keg of a temper that leaves a trail of bodies if his coffee is cold… or decaf. Then we have Pavi, the lustful narcissist played by Ogre from the band Skinny Puppy. He’s such a vain character, he always carries a mirror to look at his new and seemingly more perfect face, which he has taken from some beauty and wears like a mask. Finally, there’s Amber, played rather well by Paris Hilton (yes, that Paris Hilton). She’s a debutante party girl who is addicted to Zydrate and surgery. She wants to be perfect like GeneCo’s operatic superstar spokeswoman, Blind Mag, but she can’t sing and surgery can’t fix that. That same Blind Mag (who is no longer blind thanks to new techno-eyes), we find out, was best friends with Marni and is actually Shilo’s godmother, who then becomes marked for “repossession” by Rotti once she learns of Shilo’s existence. She’s been an indentured servant to GeneCo as a way for Rotti to keep all his pawns in check, but his pawns are done playing games.
Pavi admiring his new face.
The story of Repo! The Genetic Opera tackles the idea of how one choice can change your life, and frames it with the premise that corporate greed is killing our world and facilitating people to make choices that might seem good at first, but are ultimately a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. Yes, you can save your life with an organ transplant. However, doing so puts you in massive debt, forcing you to live in abject poverty and risks a brutal murder if you miss a payment, which you likely won’t be able to make unless you’re already rich. It’s a painful euphemism for modern capitalism made all the more painful by recent events.
The choices made by Shilo and her father are the heart of the story. Her father ultimately chooses to reject his master after finally moving past his grief over his wife’s death. Shilo is then offered an opportunity by Rotti to entrap and kill the Repo Man (whom Shilo is not yet aware is her father) in exchange for owning all of GeneCo. She’s a teenager and is beginning to rebel, so when she’s presented with this opportunity at a particularly susceptible point in her journey, she takes it. However, when she learns the Repo Man is her father and about Rotti’s twisted manipulation of everyone due to a 17 year old grudge, she makes the choice to refute Rotti, prompting him to kill her father. Like the choice everyone has in this film, it turned out to catch-22. However, Shilo did come out ahead. She learned that she is her own person and her life is not to be dictated by anyone – not her father, not Rotti, no one. She rides off in Rotti’s limo into the putrid sunset wearing her newfound confidence proudly.
Blind Mag: The inspiration for many cosplays in 2008.
What’s unique about this movie is that it’s a horror movie that’s a full-on musical. Or, as the narrating Graverobber calls it in the final number, it’s a “Goth opera. Blood saga.” It’s gory, but at times funny; it’s dark, but stylish; it’s grim (very grim), but like a flower growing through a crack on a busy street there’s a glimmer of hope. It melds all this together into a package that seems very weird, because, well, it is, but the weirdness all makes sense in the context of the Repo world, which is explained sporadically, along with each character’s back story, via a short comic-style montage.
The set and costume design of Repo blends Victorian goth with cyberpunk in a way that you wouldn’t think would work, but very much does. A perfect example of this melding of styles is seen in the home of our heroine, Shilo. The house is designed to look as if it stepped right out of Downton Abbey, yet the walls are adorned with ornately-framed hologram portraits of Shilo’s deceased mother, adding a slightly creepy techy infusion to this gothic abode. There’s also a portrait that looks into a display of what appears to be a mannequin dressed as Shilo’s mother, adding to the eerie Victorian ambience of the home. This is used to great effect later in the film during the number where Nathan moves past his grief over Marni. Her portraits all flicker off as he walks past and the mannequin display is broken with the mannequin missing. It turns out Shilo took the mannequin and uses it to trap her father, symbolizing his still ultimately being trapped by the circumstances surrounding his late wife.
The Repo man at work.
The songs in Repo! are interesting and definitely not for everyone. That’s not to say they’re bad, in fact they’re quite good, albeit somewhat stylistically dated (Shilo’s song “Seventeen” sees her doing her best Avril Lavigne impersonation alongside a delightful cameo by Joan Jett). They’re definitely hard rock; however, they’re not the “safe” rock as heard in something by, say, Andrew Loyd Weber. People who come into this expecting that you’re standard Broadway style of rock will not be amused as they watch scantily-clad cyberpunk nurses writhe around Bill Mosely as he angrily tosses intestines about to heavy guitar riffs.
As someone who isn’t the biggest fan of operas, I quite liked Repo! The Genetic Opera. It’s a unique take on the horror genre that could have easily gone wrong, but it straddles a fine line between camp and seriousness that makes it an enjoyable watch that leaves you thinking after the darkly funny conclusion. If you’re wanting something like Phantom of the Opera, go watch that. That’s a much safer rock opera. However, if you want something that takes the concept of a rock opera and injects it with Zydrate and gore, this is the film for you.