And now, for something completely different...I was at the Filmhouse cinema with some friends last night for a special screening of Repo! The Genetic Opera, a "21st century rock-opera" set in a dystopian future where everyone's organs are failing and they are getting transplants from an evil genetics corporation that will happily repossess the organs (messily) if you can't keep up the payments.
Essentially, it's a bit like The Rocky Horror Picture Show meets Blade Runner. The crucial difference being, though, that those films are, you know, good. Repo isn't. Not by a long way. In fact, I'd say it's quite easily one of the worst films I've ever seen. Almost from the first minute I was staring at the screen in a state of disbelief at just how bad it is.
The biggest problem is that the entire movie is sung. Unlike your typical musical which mixes ordinary dialogue with songs, the here the dialogue is the songs, and as a result most of the lyrics are terrible and not in the least bit memorable or catchy. The music is incessantly awful, the acting woeful and the plot non-sensical. And just to make things worse, Paris Hilton is in it. The rest of the cast includes a few recognisable names including Anthony Stewart Head (of Buffy fame) and, bizarrely, Sarah Brightman (a.k.a. the original Christine in The Phantom of the Opera). Quite how they got involved remains a mystery.
The evening wasn't a complete write-off though: the film's director, Darren Lynn Bousman, and the writer were there to introduce the film and answer questions afterwards (first question: "Why Paris Hilton?"), and they were both pretty cool, entertaining guys. They openly acknowledged that many people hate the film, but they clearly had a blast making it and were totally down-to-earth and self-deprecating. I was particularly surprised by Bousman, who as the director of Saw II, Saw III, and Saw IV is actually a fairly successful (if typecast) Hollywood filmmaker. He was refreshingly open about how the Saw franchise is very much a machine that he was only a small part of, and that he has greater career aspirations than churning out horror sequels his entire life.
Repo is clearly destined to become a cult favourite, judging from the enthusiastic response from the, shall we say, diverse audience last night. There is already an element of crowd participation developing à la Rocky Horror, despite the film only coming out last December, and I can foresee regular midnight screenings occurring around the world for a long time to come. It's just a shame that it's so bad...
VERDICT: Don't. Just. Don't.
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