Torture Porn -- The Musical! Arturo v. Repo: The Genetic Opera!

Don't believe the hype:
Rocky Horror has nothing to fear from Repo: The Genetic Opera. Shock Treatment, however, might have found a kindred spirit.

Like Shocky, Repo features a bunch of sorta-interesting characters searching for a plot. And like Shocky, Repo is better served on the stage, where actors can inhabit the parts more fully, without being hamstrung by Darren Smith's direction, which is the wrong kind of confining -- more "trapped in the window seat next to the annoying couple" than anything scary or titillating. Unlike Shocky, for a "rock opera," Repo never really rocks.

And that's the first giveaway that Repo's styling as a new RHPS is off-base. Besides the fact that nobody goes to Rocky for the movie itself, the show itself is sensual. The characters and the people playing them seem to enjoy the act of sex. In Repo, various figures strut about preening and, literally, assuming the positions. But none of it is hot, really. And where Sweeney Todd got the most blood for its' bucket, Repo seems content to pander to the post-Saw crowd. There's no art in the kills here, literally or creatively.

Speaking of teen angst, our heroine, such as it is, is sickly young Shilo Wallace, who is unknowingly at the center of a long-simmering family feud. As Shilo, Alexa Vega demonstrates she's ready for more than Spy Kids-like fare, but unfortunately, the character -- a Mary Sue in Amy Lee's clothing -- is too slight for Vega's performance. When a "rebellion" sequence is introduced, it comes across as more Avril than Anarchist.


In another nod to Todd, the story actually revolves around two dueling father figures: Shilo's dad Nathan (Anthony Stewart Head, finally unleashing the Ripper within) and nu-world magnate Rotti Largo (a shockingly, near-truly operatic Paul Sorvino). Connected by a fatal secret, Nathan moonlights for Rotti as the titular Repo Man, graphically and gleefully repossessing the most precious of currencies and status symbols in Rotti's rotting America: organs. Largo's company, GeneCo, loans anatomy to survivors in this plague-ridden world -- at a price, of course. Nathan comes in when the punters don't pay, becoming an urban boogieman as he struggles to hang on to his paternal status, sometimes struggling literally in the same breath.

Rotti also has kids, a trio of ghastly ciphers he doesn't trust to run the family shop. For that, he plans to lure Shilo to a performance by Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman). No spoilers for what happens next, but it's a bad omen when one of the songs sounds exactly like the kind of thing spoofed in Not Another Teen Movie.

At a brisk 98 minutes, Repo doesn't give the viewer or itself time to really care about its' characters, a fact that also debunks any claims to inheriting the RHPS cult "throne." Not that Richard O'Brien gave us a bunch of icons, either, but at least a) the Brad/Janet/Frank triumverate each represented something and b) most of the other characters got a moment to shine. In Repo, aside from the Normans, Rotti and perhaps Mag, none of the other characters really does anything but recite their traits (co-writer Terrance Zdunich's Gravedigger is especially underused).

Perhaps that's by design, but in creating a "goth opera" that's more (dubiously) goth than opera, Zudnich and co-writer Darren Smith sell the rest of their story short. In this post-apocalyptic future, everybody looks like the Fraggles going to Hot Topic. As a film, at least, this show is one act short of meaning anything. But on the stage, or as a Shadowcast at an RHPS convention, then all the blood and guts might finally gain some heart.