Repo! The Genetic Opera

Repo! The Genetic Opera
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Darren Lynn Bousman
Written by	Darren Smith Terrance Zdunich
Produced by	Darren Lynn Bousman Yoshiki Hayashi
Starring	Alexa Vega Anthony Stewart Head Sarah Brightman Paris Hilton Ogre Terrance Zdunich Bill Moseley Paul Sorvino
Cinematography	Joseph White
Edited by	Harvey Rosenstock
Music by	Darren Smith Terrance Zdunich
Distributed by	Lionsgate Twisted Pictures
Release date	November 7, 2008
Running time	98 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$8,500,000

Repo! The Genetic Opera is a 2008 rock opera-musical film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman. Originally planned for an April 25 release date, it has since been reported that it will open with a limited release in 4 U.S. cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, and Las Vegas) on November 7, 2008 followed by Toronto, Canada on November 21, 2008, and a subsequent DVD release in January 2009. A 22-track soundtrack was released online on September 30, 2008, and another will be released in CD-format to coincide with the release of the DVD. The film is based on a play written and composed by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich. It received an R rating by the MPAA for strong bloody violence and gore, language, some drug and sexual content.

Plot

The film opens with a series of comic-book panels that explain how an epidemic of organ failures devastated the planet in the future ("Depraved Heart Murder at Sanitarium Square"). Out of the tragedy, GeneCo, a multi-billion dollar biotech company, emerged. GeneCo provides organ transplantation for profits. In addition to financing options, GeneCo reserves the right to implement default remedies, including repossession. For those who can't keep up with their organ payments, collection is the responsibility of "organ repo men", skilled assassins contracted by GeneCo. Repo men are ordered to recover GeneCo's property by any means necessary. One such Repo Man stalks and kills a client whose heart is then repossessed ("Genetic Repo Man").

The president of GeneCo, Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino), learns that he is dying, while Shilo Wallace (Alexa Vega), a 17 year-old girl with a rare blood disease that she's been told she inherited from her deceased mother, sneaks through underground tunnels to her mother's mausoleum ("Things You See in a Graveyard (Part One)").

Shilo follows a bug out of the mausoleum in an attempt to catch it, and in the process, runs into GraveRobber (Terrance Zdunich), who is busy digging underground. They flee from GenCops and enter a massive underground graveyard ("21st Century Cure").

After passing out from blood-pressure problems, Shilo wakes up ("Shilo Wakes") to her overprotective father, Nathan Wallace (Anthony Head). He has been keeping her locked in their house for 17 years due to her disease. Shilo is bitter towards her deceased mother for giving her this disease ("Infected"). Nathan, upset, gets ready for work – as the head Repo Man for GeneCo ("Legal Assassin"). He takes great pride in his work, but knows that he can never reveal it to Shilo in fear of breaking her trust.

Rotti's children, Luigi Largo (Bill Moseley), Pavi Largo (Nivek Ogre), and Amber Sweet (Paris Hilton), meet at a GeneCo warehouse for inventory and the two brothers begin to bicker over who will be chosen to inherit GeneCo after Rotti dies ("Mark It Up"). Rotti, however, begins to take an interest in Shilo ("Things You See in a Graveyard (Part Two)"), whom he invites to GeneCo's Genetic Opera ("Limo Ride"). Nathan, meanwhile, repossess a defaulted intestine and uses the victim as a puppet ("Thankless Job").

Luigi kills two of his subordinates ("Largo's Little Helpers") while Genterns successfully attach a new face to Pavi ("Genterns"). The two siblings get on the nerves of Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman), a famous pop-opera singer who sings for GeneCo. When she tells them to behave, they argue back. Amber joins in and begins to harass Mag about being her replacement ("Luigi, Pavi, Amber Harass Mag"). Rotti then introduces Mag to Shilo ("Seeing You Stirs Memories"), who Mag thought died at birth.

Nathan, while working and repossessing a spine, calls Shilo, who is at Sanitarium Square being guarded by Rotti's henchgirls while he's busy ("Inopportune Telephone Call"). GraveRobber arrives and helps Shilo slip away from the henchgirls ("GraveRobber and Shilo Escape"). Rotti, meanwhile, announces that Blind Mag will be performing her final song. He also announces that his daughter, Amber, will be the spokesperson for the newly revealed Zydrate Support Network, a rehabilitation center for those addicted to the powerful painkiller Zydrate ("Zydrate Support Network").

Shilo watches as GraveRobber explains Zydrate, harvested from the brains of corpses and peddled to addicts. Those who are addicted to surgery, including Amber, need Zydrate to ease the pain. Amber arrives and gets a shot of it, explaining in the process that she will be replacing Blind Mag after Mag's eyes, which she got from GeneCo, get repossessed after her final song ("Zydrate Anatomy"). GenCops arrive and everyone scrambles to escape, except for Amber and her two valets, who hold her up as she passes out in a drug-induced haze.

Nathan delivers the repossessed spine to Rotti, and he gives Nathan his next target - Blind Mag. Nathan refuses ("Who Ordered Pizza?"). Rotti, Pavi, and Luigi follow Nathan as he kills another victim, trying to guilt him into repossessing Blind Mag's eyes ("Night Surgeon"). He still refuses, and leaves once done with the victim.

Later, Rotti sends his henchgirls to accompany Blind Mag to Shilo's house, where Blind Mag reveals to Shilo that she is Shilo's godmother, having been good friends with Shilo's mother Marni before she died. Blind Mag was sent by Rotti to convince Shilo to come to tonight's Genetic Opera. However, she also warns Shilo about GeneCo ("Chase the Morning"). Nathan arrives and, mad at Mag, starts an argument before kicking her out of his house ("Come Back!"). After trying to tell her dad that a Repo Man will take Blind Mag's eyes, Nathan tells her that there's no such thing as Repo Men and sends her to bed. When she argues, he asks what she, a seventeen year old, could possibly do ("What Chance Has a 17 Year Old Girl?"). Shilo retorts that it's better than being forty ("Seventeen").

Amber, meanwhile, complains to her father that her latest surgery was botched, ruining her face. Rotti explains that he told her not to get so many surgeries. However, he eventually tells her that he'll take care of it ("Happiness is Not a Warm Scalpel"). After she leaves, Rotti voices his opinion that the only persistent thing in the world is gold and signs his will, which shows Shilo as his sole benefactor.

Nathan discovers GenCops in his basement whose mission is to find the "rogue Repo Man" ("Nathan Discovers Rotti's Plan"). After realizing that Shilo isn't home, Nathan discovers that the GenCops have stolen Marni's body from the basement ("Tonight We Are Betrayed").

Everyone gets ready for the Genetic Opera (Nathan puts on his Repo Man gear, Blind Mag walks through the cemetery on the way to the opera house, Amber picks up a last hit of Zydrate before the show, etc.) ("At the Opera Tonight"). GraveRobber, meanwhile, believes that there will be a bloodbath at the Genetic Opera, and that whoever survives it will inherit GeneCo ("Bloodbath!").

The stories intertwine as everyone arrives at the GeneCo Genetic Opera, where the performance begins ("We Started This Op'ra Shit!"). Amber takes the stage for her premier as a singer, but her solo song is cut short when she trips and her face falls off ("Blame Not My Cheeks"). Mag begins singing her final song, ending it by gouging out her own eyes, stating that she'd rather be blind ("Chromaggia"). The cords suspending her in the air begin to snap "accidentally", dropping and impaling Mag on metal rods of a fence, killing her ("Mag's Fall"). Rotti insists that it's part of the performance and convinces the audience to stay by saying that he will cure Shilo's illness ("Pièce De Résistance").

Shilo attacks Nathan in his Repo Man gear by hitting him in the head with a shovel, as Rotti instructed her to do earlier. Shilo realizes that the Repo Man is her father ("Let the Monster Rise"). Rotti then reveals Nathan to be the man who's been making Shilo sick by giving her poisonous "medication" ("The Man Who Made You Sick"). Nathan explains that he was only doing so to keep her away from the world, which he knew to be a terrible place. Rotti then tells Shilo that if she kills her father, she will inherit GeneCo ("Cut the Ties"). When she refuses, Rotti uses the last of his strength to shoot Nathan ("Shilo Turns Against Rotti"). Rotti then dies, on-stage, from his disease. Shilo and Nathan say goodbye to each other before Nathan dies from his wound ("I Didn't Know I'd Love You So Much"). Shilo leaves, free from her genetic destiny ("Genetic Emancipation").

The following day, GraveRobber reads about Shilo turning down the inheritance of GeneCo ("Epitaph"). Amber takes control over GeneCo in her place, and auctions off the face that fell off to her brother Pavi.

Cast

• Anthony Stewart Head as Nathan Wallace, Shilo's father and a widower, having lost his wife Marni, a death which he blames himself for. He doubles as the head Repo Man.
• Alexa Vega as Shilo Wallace, a young woman condemned to her room due to the blood disorder she inherited from her mother.
• Paul Sorvino as Rotti Largo, the dying president of GeneCo, looking for a worthy heir. He sees his own children as "vultures" and "ingrates", and is bitter towards Nathan for stealing Marni from him.
• Sarah Brightman as Blind Mag, born blind but given the ability to see by GeneCo at the price of having to sing for the GeneCo Genetic Opera. She is marked for repossession and she is set to deliver her final performance for the company.
• Paris Hilton as Amber Sweet, the surgery-addicted daughter of Rotti who is Mag's rival. She is addicted to Zydrate, a euphoric painkiller, which she obtains illegally from GraveRobber. In an interview director Darren Lynn Bousman revealed that he had originally refused to audition Paris for the role of Amber Sweet. "I broke down," says Bousman, "and I met with her, and immediately she charmed everyone in the room." In the same interview, Bousman also revealed that Hilton had the script smuggled to her during her much publicized stint in a Los Angeles jail, and used her time inside to work on her role.
• Bill Moseley as Luigi Largo, the eldest son of Rotti, described as being angry and abusive. He wields a knife at all times and is usually wearing an ascot.
• Nivek Ogre as Pavi Largo, the younger son of Rotti, described as vain, dim-witted, effeminate, and a very possible rapist. He wears women's faces as masks to cover his own face, which is horrendously scarred.
• Terrance Zdunich as GraveRobber, a Zydrate-peddler with connections to Amber, sexually and as a dealer. He acts as a narrator of the post-apocalyptic world.
• Sarah Power (Nancy Long, singing) as Dead Marni Shilo's dead mother and Nathan's late wife.
• Jake Reardon (Poe, singing) as Single Mother
• Darren Smith as Band Leader

Musical numbers

There are 64 songs in the movie. This is the official list of all the songs in the film. Some have been cut from the movie (e.g. "Come Up and Try My New Parts"). Not all songs have confirmed performers. Joan Jett appears in the number "Seventeen", and Melora Creager of Rasputina plays cello on the soundtrack. A soundtrack was released on September 30 with 22 tracks. Songs do not appear in the same sequence on the CD as they do in the film.

1. “Depraved Heart Murder at Sanitarium Square”
2. “Genetic Repo Man” – Terrance Zdunich
3. “Crucifixus” – Sarah Brightman
4. "Things You See in a Graveyard (Part One)" – Paul Sorvino
5. “21st Century Cure” – Alexa Vega & Terrance Zdunich
6. “Shilo Wakes” – Anthony Head & Alexa Vega
7. “Infected” – Alexa Vega
8. “Legal Assassin” – Anthony Head
9. “Lungs and Livers”
10. “Bravi!” – Sarah Brightman, Paul Sorvino, Paris Hilton, Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre
11. “Mark It Up” – Paris Hilton, Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre
12. “Tao of Mag” – Sarah Brightman
13. "Things You See in a Graveyard (Part Two)" – Paul Sorvino
14. “Limo Ride” – Paul Sorvino & Alexa Vega
15. “Thankless Job” – Anthony Head
16. “No Organes? No Problema!”
17. “Largo's Little Helpers” – Bill Moseley
18. “Genterns" – Nivek Ogre
19. "Luigi, Pavi, Amber Harass Mag” – Sarah Brightman, Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre, Paris Hilton, Paul Sorvino
20. “Seeing You Stirs Memories” – Paul Sorvino
21. “Inopportune Telephone Call” – Anthony Head & Alexa Vega
22. “GraveRobber and Shilo Escape” – Terrance Zdunich & Alexa Vega
23. “Zydrate Support Network” – Paul Sorvino, Sarah Brightman, J. Larose
24. “Zydrate Anatomy” – Terrance Zdunich, Alexa Vega, Paris Hilton
25. “Who Ordered Pizza?” – Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre, Paris Hilton, Paul Sorvino, Anthony Head
26. “Night Surgeon” – Anthony Head, Paul Sorvino, Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre
27. “Can't Get It Up If the Girl's Breathing?” – Paris Hilton & Terrance Zdunich
28. “Come Up and Try My New Parts” – Paris Hilton
29. “Chase the Morning” – Sarah Brightman, Alexa Vega, Nancy Long
30. “Everyone's a Composer”
31. “Come Back!” – Anthony Head, Sarah Brightman, Alexa Vega
32. “What Chance Has a 17 Year Old Girl” – Anthony Head & Alexa Vega
33. “Seventeen” – Alexa Vega
34. “Happiness is Not a Warm Scalpel” – Paul Sorvino & Paris Hilton
35. “Gold” – Paul Sorvino
36. “Nathan Discovers Rotti's Plan”
37. “Tonight We Are Betrayed” – Anthony Head
38. “At the Opera Tonight” – Alexa Vega, Sarah Brightman, Anthony Head, Paris Hilton, Terrance Zdunich, Paul Sorvino, Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre
39. “Bloodbath!” – Terrance Zdunich
40. “We Started This Op'ra Shit!” – Darren Smith, Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre, Poe, Paul Sorvino
41. “Buongiorno”
42. “Needle Through A Bug” – Alexa Vega & Terrance Zdunich
43. “Rotti's Chapel Sermon” – Paul Sorvino
44. “Blame Not My Cheeks” – Paris Hilton
45. “Chromaggia” – Sarah Brightman
46. "Mag's Fall"
47. “Pièce De Résistance” – Paul Sorvino
48. "Interrogation Room Challenge"
49. “Let the Monster Rise” – Anthony Head & Alexa Vega
50. “Don't Poop In My Pool”
51. “Sawman's Lament” Anthony Head, Alexa Vega, Paul Sorvino, Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre
52. “The Man Who Made You Sick” – Paul Sorvino
53. "Cut the Ties" – Anthony Head, Alexa Vega, Paul Sorvino, Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre
54. “Shilo Turns Against Rotti" – Anthony Head, Alexa Vega, Paul Sorvino, Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre
55. “I Didn't Know I'd Love You So Much” – Anthony Head & Alexa Vega
56. “Genetic Emancipation” – Alexa Vega
57. “Epitaph” – Terrance Zdunich

Two songs are also to be performed by two of the stars during the ending credits.

1. “Repo Man” – Nivek Ogre
2. “Aching Hour” – Sarah Brightman

Production and history

The first version of Repo! was The Necromerchant's Debt, which told the story of a graverobber in debt to a Repo Organ Man. It was first performed at the John Raitt theater. After being such a success, creators Smith and Zdunich expanded on the universe to create all of the storylines that became Repo! The Genetic Opera. Many changes were made, gradually, to the characters and music. For example, Rotti, in the earliest performances, was not the father to Luci, Pavi, and Heather. Instead, he was a younger brother to Luci and Pavi, while Heather was Luci's daughter. Music lyrics were adjusted to new arcs, and some songs were dropped altogether, like "But This Is Opera!", which was cut out in an effort to change the direction of Blind Mag's character. After years of being performed as a stage play, Repo! was adapted into a 10-minute short movie by Darren Lynn Bousman to pitch the idea to movie companies. The movie starred Shawnee Smith as Heather Sweet, Michael Rooker as the Repo Man, Kristen Fairlie as Shilo Wallace, Terrance Zdunich as the GraveRobber, and J. Larose as Pavi. Once Repo! The Genetic Opera was picked up by Lionsgate, shooting began on September 2007 in Canada. The movie was scheduled to be released on April 25, 2008, but was pushed back to November 7, 2008. X Japan member Yoshiki Hayashi will produce the soundtrack, along with composing one extra track for the film. He is also one of the film's producers.

Promotion

Due to Lionsgate's lack of promotion for the film, director Bousman and creator Zdunich do much of their own promotion. For example, MySpace profiles have been created for individual characters in the Repo! universe (5 have been activated thus far: GraveRobber, Pavi Largo, Luigi Largo, Amber Sweet, and Rotti Largo), as well as for the movie itself. Each profile uses art drawn by Zdunich. A Road Tour was later set up for one-night screenings of the film in 10 different cities across the United States.

Reviews

On March 4, 2008, there was a private screening of Repo! the Genetic Opera for many critics and the crew. The reviews written from the screening were all extremely positive. However, the film they saw was not the fully completed version. Some noted that the sound mixing was not finished. The director has finished the final touches on the film as of March 31st, 2008. It is now in the hands of Lionsgate to release further information.

The Fantasia Film Festival held in Montreal, Quebec on July 18, 2008 had the first official fully edited screening of Repo! the Genetic Opera. The show was sold out.

Controversy

A very similar film has entered production named Repossession Mambo which shares the same basic plot. Editing of these films took place in adjacent studios. It is to be noted that Repo! The Genetic Opera was in production well before this film was announced, and had existed as a play for several years before the movie began filming..

External links

• Official site - created by Wiretree
• Repo! The Genetic Opera at IMDb
• Repo! The Genetic Opera at AllMovie
• Repo! The Genetic Opera at Box Office Mojo
• Repo! The Genetic Opera at Metacritic
• Official site of the stage play
• Interview with Darren Lynn Bousman and Alexa Vega about Repo! the Genetic Opera at Alternative Film Guide
• Interview with Terrance Zdunich and Bill Moseley about Repo! the Genetic Opera at Alternative Film Guide
• Review of Repo! the Genetic Opera at Alternative Film Guide