Subtle Vengeance

A guy I used o work with handed me a CD months ago. It was labeled “Repo! Genetic Opera“. He told me I could keep it, that it featured Anthony Head and Sarah Brightman, and that he hated it. I took it home and forgot about it, until my wife was looking at Tony Head’s IMDB and my eye caught it in the list. So that night I dusted off the disc, copied the movie to my PC, and suggested we “just watch the beginning.” Two hours later we finally went to bed.

Repo is a musical set in the near future, after a plague forces humanity to engage in costly organ transplants to survive. The transplant market is cornered by a man named Rotti Largo, whose company, GeneCo, has created a stranglehold on the social and financial lives of all people.

Organs are expensive, as is Zydrate, the addictive pain suppressant drug which allows both necessary and elective surgery to be performed swiftly and safely.  And those who can’t keep up with their payments, well, they face repossession. Of their organs. Usually in a basement or alley, without anesthetic.

The story focuses on Shilo, a sickly girl who has been sequestered her entire life after her mother’s blood disease complicated childbirth. Raised alone by Nathan Wallace (Head), Shilo begins to question her father’s wisdom after she finds out he has been lying to her and hiding her from the world, and particularly from GeneCo’s poster child, and Shilo’s Godmother, Blind Mag (Brightman, left). And yes, those are her eyelashes.

The whole thing has a dark, gritty, genepunk (of course) feel to it, one that reminds me a lot of Transmetropolitan, except with less gadgetry and media focus. It’s a musical start-to-end; there are very few moments when there is not some sort of music, and most of is is either hauntingly beautiful or spine-tinglingly badass. Style alternates mostly between classical opera and modern rock, with some discordant oompahs for the villains.

I won’t spoil too much, but the plot has all the best elements of a dramatic tragedy. There’s love, loss, and elective surgery. Anthony Head’s singing voice is fscking incredible as always. But the number one reason you should watch Repo! today?

To see Paris Hilton’s frigging face fall off.