Repo! The Genetic Opera


Repo! The Genetic Opera is a 2008 American musical film. Described as a gothic rock opera, the film was directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and based on the 2002 stage musical of the same name, written and composed by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich. It stars Alexa Vega, Anthony Stewart Head, Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton, Nivek Ogre, Terrance Zdunich, Bill Moseley, and Paul Sorvino.
Repo! premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival in July 2008, followed by a limited release on November 7, 2008, on seven screens in various cities.

Plot

By the year 2056, an epidemic of organ failures has devastated the planet and wiped out 99% of the human population. The megacorporation GeneCo provides organ transplants on a payment plan. Clients who miss payments are hunted down by Repo Men, skilled assassins who "repossess" the organs. The CEO of GeneCo, Rotti Largo, discovers he is terminally ill. Rotti's children Luigi, Pavi, and Amber bicker over who will inherit GeneCo, but Rotti believes none of them are worthy heirs and instead plans to give his fortune to 17-year-old Shilo Wallace, the daughter of his late ex-fiancée Marni.
Shilo has inherited a rare blood disease from Marni that requires her to stay indoors, though she longs to see the outside world. Shilo's overprotective father, Nathan believes he accidentally killed Marni with a treatment he created for her illness – in truth, a jealous Rotti secretly poisoned Marni's medicine and blackmailed Nathan, promising not to arrest him for manslaughter if he agreed to become GeneCo's head Repo Man, though he has convinced Shilo he is a doctor. One night, Shilo secretly visits Marni's tomb and runs into the omniscient GraveRobber, who is digging up bodies to extract Zydrate, a euphoric and addictive painkiller that he sells on the street to keep up with his GeneCo payments.
Rotti lures Shilo to GeneCo's fair with promises of a cure for her disease. There, she meets Blind Mag, an opera singer and GeneCo's celebrity spokesperson. Born blind, Mag has been given surgically enhanced eyes by GeneCo at the cost of indefinite employment, though she is soon resigning. GraveRobber helps Shilo escape the fairgrounds, encountering several of his customers, including the surgery-addicted Amber. Shilo learns that Mag's eyes are set for repossession and that Amber will replace her as GeneCo's spokeswoman. After GeneCops arrive, Shilo quickly returns to her room before Nathan notices her missing.
Nathan refuses to repossess Mag's eyes, citing her close friendship with Marni. Infuriated, Rotti vows to have Nathan taken out. Mag visits Shilo, reveals that she is her godmother and that Nathan had told her Shilo died alongside Marni, and cautions Shilo not to make the same mistakes she did. Nathan arrives and ousts Mag after she scolds him for lying to her and incarcerating Shilo. Shilo begs him to let Mag hide from the Repo Man in their house, but Nathan refuses, leading Shilo to snap and finally condemn her father for his overbearing treatment of her and inability to move on from Marni's death. Meanwhile, Rotti writes his will, ready to make Shilo his sole beneficiary.
Rotti invites Shilo to the Opera. Nathan heads out to find her, pursued by GeneCops, whom he quickly dispatches. Amber makes her stage debut, but her performance is ruined when her transplanted face falls off. Mag completes her final performance, but deviates from the song's grand finale, denouncing the Largo family and gouging out her eyes in an act of defiance. Rotti cuts the cords suspending Mag, impaling her on a fence, but assures the panicking audience that Mag's death was staged as part of the show.
Shilo is approached by a Repo Man and attacks him with a shovel, revealing him as Nathan, much to her horror. Onstage, Rotti reveals that Nathan has been poisoning Shilo's "medicine" in an attempt to keep her safe from the outside world after being unable to cope with the loss of Marni. As his health rapidly declines, Rotti offers Shilo GeneCo if she kills her father. When she refuses, Rotti uses the last of his strength to fatally shoot Nathan, and dies after disowning his children. After a tearful farewell to her father, Shilo decides that Nathan's actions do not dictate her future.
Shilo flees, leaving GeneCo with no legal heir. Amber inherits the company instead and auctions her fallen face to charity, which Pavi wins after Luigi kills the top three bidders.

Cast

makes a cameo appearance playing guitar during the song "Seventeen". Dean Armstrong appears as the victim during "Thankless Job". Co-writer Darren Smith appears during "We Started This Op'ra Shit" as the GeneCo band leader. Frequent Bousman collaborator J. LaRose appears during "Zydrate Support Network" as a GeneCo spokesman.

Music

The film's soundtrack was produced by Yoshiki from X Japan.
The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released September 30, 2008.
In the film, the following songs are performed:
  1. "Genetic Repo Man" – GraveRobber
  2. "Things You See in a Graveyard" – Rotti
  3. "21st Century Cure" – GraveRobber, Shilo
  4. "Shilo Wakes" – Nathan, Shilo
  5. "Infected" – Shilo
  6. "Legal Assassin" – Nathan, Ghostly chorus
  7. "Lungs and Livers" – GeneCo Chorus
  8. "Mark It Up" – Genterns, Amber, Luigi, Pavi
  9. "Tao of Mag" – Mag
  10. "Things You See in a Graveyard" – Rotti
  11. "Limo Ride" – Rotti and Shilo
  12. "Thankless Job" – Nathan
  13. "Tao of Mag" – Mag
  14. "No Organs? No Problemo!" – GeneCo chorus
  15. "Largo's Little Helpers" – Child chorus
  16. "Genterns" – Genterns, Pavi
  17. "Luigi, Pavi, Amber Harass Mag" – Luigi, Mag, Amber, Pavi, Rotti
  18. "Seeing You Stirs Memories" – Rotti
  19. "Seeing You Stirs Memories " – Rotti, Mag
  20. "My, What Big Scissors You Have" – Shilo
  21. "Inopportune Telephone Call" – Nathan, Shilo
  22. "GraveRobber and Shilo Escape" – GraveRobber, Shilo
  23. "Zydrate Support Network" – Rotti, Reporter
  24. "Zydrate Anatomy" – GraveRobber, Shilo, Amber, Zydrate addicts
  25. "Disposal Crew" – Disposal crew
  26. "Who Ordered Pizza?" – Luigi, Pavi, Nathan, Rotti, Amber
  27. "Night Surgeon" – Nathan, Rotti, Henchgirls, Luigi, Pavi, Genterns
  28. "Chase the Morning" – Mag, Shilo, Marni
  29. "Everyone's a Composer" – Mag, Nathan, Shilo
  30. "Come Back!" – Nathan and Shilo
  31. "What Chance Has a 17 Year Old Girl" – Nathan, Shilo
  32. "Seventeen" – Shilo
  33. "Happiness Is Not a Warm Scalpel" – Amber, Rotti
  34. "Gold" – Rotti
  35. "Nathan Discovers Rotti's Plan" – Nathan, Shilo
  36. "Tonight We Are Betrayed" – Nathan
  37. "At the Opera Tonight" – Shilo, Mag, Nathan, Amber, GraveRobber, Rotti, Luigi, Pavi
  38. "Bloodbath!" – GraveRobber
  39. "We Started This Op'ra Shit!" – Bandleader, Luigi, Pavi, Rotti, GeneCo chorus
  40. "Interrogation Room Challenge" – Rotti
  41. "Blame Not My Cheeks" – Amber, GeneCo chorus
  42. "Chromaggia" – Mag
  43. "Pièce De Résistance" – Rotti
  44. "Let the Monster Rise" – Nathan, Shilo
  45. "Sawman's Lament" – Rotti, Luigi, Pavi, Shilo, Nathan
  46. "The Man Who Made You Sick" – Rotti, Shilo, Nathan
  47. "Cut the Ties" – Rotti, Luigi, Shilo, Pavi
  48. "Shilo Turns Against Rotti" – Shilo, Rotti, Nathan
  49. "I Didn't Know I'd Love You So Much" – Shilo, Nathan
  50. "Genetic Emancipation" – Shilo
  51. "Epitaph" – GraveRobber, Zydrate addicts
  52. "Repo Man" – Ogre
  53. "VUK-R" – Violet UK
  54. "Needle Through a Bug" – Shilo, Graverobber
  55. "Bravi" – Mag, Pavi, Luigi, Rotti, Amber
  56. "Aching Hour" – Sarah Brightman

    Score tracks

Includes songs only heard as instrumentals and not parts of any deleted songs:
  1. "Depraved Heart Murder at Sanitarium Square"*
  2. "The Prognosis"*
  3. "Nathan's Story"*
  4. "Rotti's Story"*
  5. "A Ventriloquist's Mess"*
  6. "Blind Mag's Story"*
  7. "Before the Escape"*
  8. "Worthy Heirs?"*
  9. "A Dump Truck Home"*
  10. "The Visitor"*
  11. "Pre-Happiness"*
  12. "Not Your Parents' Opera"*
  13. "Mag's Fall"*
  14. "A Ten Second Opera"*

    Production

Development

In 1996, Darren Smith had a friend who was going through bankruptcy and whose possessions were going into foreclosure. Inspired by this, Smith came up with the idea of a future where not only one's property, but also one's body parts, could be repossessed. Smith and Terrance Zdunich collaborated on ideas and plot lines to create the first version of Repo!, titled The Necromerchant's Debt, which told the story of a grave robber in debt to a Repo Organ Man. It premiered at the John Raitt Theater in 2002. After being such a success, Smith and Zdunich expanded on the universe to create all of the storylines that became Repo! The Genetic Opera later in 2002. Many changes were made, gradually, to the characters and music throughout various incarnations through 2005. For example, Rotti, in the earliest performances, was not father to Luigi, Pavi and Amber. Instead, he was a younger brother to Luigi and Pavi, while Amber was Luigi's daughter. Lyrics were adjusted to new arcs and some songs were dropped altogether, such as "But This Is Opera!", cut out to change the direction of Mag's character.
After years of being performed as a stage play, Repo! was adapted into a ten-minute short film directed and financed by Darren Lynn Bousman to pitch the idea to film studios. The film starred Shawnee Smith as Amber Sweet, Michael Rooker as the Repo Man, Kristen Fairlie as Shilo, Zdunich as GraveRobber and J. Larose as Pavi.

Filming

Once picked up by Lionsgate, principal photography began in September 2007 in Canada. it was filmed primarily at Cinespace Film Studios in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where the Production for the cult musical film took place between September 10 and October 22, 2007. The film was scheduled to be released on April 25, 2008, but was pushed back to November 7. X Japan leader Yoshiki produced the soundtrack, along with composing one extra track for the film.