Excuse me while I fangirl. ‘Repo! The Genetic Opera‘ is ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show‘ meets ‘Bladerunner‘. On crack.

Between adrenalin stimulating video games and super concentrated doses of caffeine, the genY lovers of rock musicals need a little bit more than rock n roll in drag these days. Been there, done that, have the t-shirt. So how do you up the ante on a sub-genre of a sub-genre of over-hyper attention deficit disordered people like me?

1. Speed it up. So fast you don’t have time to breath while watching the dystopic post-apocalyptic world unfold.
2. Add lots more music. Goth rock is best. Also, it should be loud. Very, very loud.
3. Go over the top. Way, way over. Like, so far over, Mario has skipped the castle and is caught in the Lost Levels for all time.

(Yes, that is the formula for making an instant generation Y cult classic. Filmmakers: take notes.)

And that’s exactly what Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich did when they invented Repo! almost a decade ago in rock clubs around the country. Along with director Darren Lynn Bousman they were able to turn what started as a 10 minute rock opera into a full length feature.

So what is ‘Repo! The Genetic Opera’? First and foremost, its a rock opera. Its like Phantom of the Opera had a love child with NIN. (Oh, and Sarah Brightman is in it too.) After that its just rather… insane. (But then again, what wasn’t insane about Dr. Frank-N-Furter growing a man in a rainbow fish tank, turning people to stone and, oh, surprise! he’s really an alien from the planet Transylvania. How anyone could call Repo! unbelievable and still accept RHPS is beyond me.)

Spoilers beyond….

The premise is simple; organ failure has become an epidemic so, like all good capitalist societies, a corporation (Geneco.) saves the day by selling lab grown organs to people. These organs are rather pricey so GeneCo. allows consumers to put them on credit (and the social commentary doesn’t end there, not by far.) But if you default on a payment the ‘Repo Man’ comes to repossess your organs. Don’t worry, it gets better.

Along with organ theft is some drug trafficking of Zydrate, a fantastic glow-in-the-dark pain killer that comes from dead peoples brains. Awesome!

If your head hasn’t exploded by now, excellent. There’s more. The predominant themes in the movie seem to be equally torn between murder, deceit, Munchhausen by Proxy (yes), drug abuse, incest, black market beagles drugs, addiction, capitalism (or something), sibling rivalry, homosexuality, and there’s more but my keyboard seems to be sparking under the weight off all this social commentary.

And with all of that, the music will make any hard rock/metal fan grunt with delight (because rock/metal fans don’t squee.) Musicians from all over the rock metal genre lined up to help out with the soundtrack when they heard about it. Add voices of the stunning Sarah Brightman and the under-rated Anthony Stewart Head and you have the trappings of one truly awesome soundtrack. For some spice add Paris Hilton. Don’t worry, she gets her face ripped off. (Truly, the only way Hilton should be portrayed in a movie.)

You might be scratching your head through the movie, wondering why the hell they sing every line of dialogue, and that is the true genius behind Repo! Its an opera, and in opera, there is no dialogue. The writers weren’t so much writers as they were musicians, which adds to the appeal for the musically inclined. There really is little to not love about this movie.

And its not just a movie, it started as an on stage performance. It only recently evolved to the big screen. The cast and crew made a few tours of the US before the DVD came out and shadowcasts are popping up all over to pay tribute to this new masterpiece. Finally, we have our own cult musical to freak our kids out with in 20 years. To the brains of Repo’s creators (and everyone else who worked on it) I say, Bravo! Bravo! Bravissimo!

(I would never knock RHPS, it will always be a classic, my first love of rock musicals. In fact I’m attending the stage production in my city next month!)