Tenebrous Empire vs. "Repo! the Genetic Opera"

Per Baron XIII, "Repo! the Genetic Opera" is the kind of movie that has so many things, so wrong with it that one could devote volumes discussing its badness, or merely dismiss it with a cutting quote. The Baron's cutting quote:


Five words: "Gothic 'Trapped in the Closet.'"


You know what, Internets--he's right. "Repo" is an opera told entirely in recitative, pretty much entirely sans-aria, detailing a story that's full of plot holes and stupidry. Unlike R. Kelly's hip-hopera, there are no midgets or flights of fancy to elevate this effort to sublimely surreal status. The Baron is wrong that "Repo" is the Worst Movie Ever, but I'll be damned if it's not a contender. Director Darren "Yes, the 'Saw' Sequels Guy" Bousman manages to squander heaps of cash AND a talented cast on an Off-to-the-Nth-Power Broadway musical with a high-concept but ill-fleshed book and songs so cringe-worthy that I thought the Baron was going to try to melt into the floor out of sheer embarassment for everyone involved in the production.


So... why is the internet abuzz with praise for this mess? Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, fellow fans of bizarre cinema! "Different" does not equal "Good," and the painfully self-referential tone of the film (LOOK I CAN HAZ OGRE AND BILL MOSELEY!) plops it firmly in the category of Hipster Cash-In. Allow me to detail some more egregious issues I have with this movie, won't you? Of course you will!

• Forty years in the future, Lip Service outfits and cheap plastic shoes from Pleaser have finally dominated the clothing market. No, really--if I can tell you the prices, sizing and SKU numbers of every piece of clothing worn by a character on-screen, your wardrober deserves a Sound And Unsexy Thrashing.
• NEVER unleash the G-Bomb (G*th) in your film--just don't--unless you mean it to be funny. ESPECIALLY NEVER do it if the music in your film is more "Meat Loaf's Retarded Cousin" than "Nik Fiend."
• If you show a gun in Act I, it had BETTER go off in Act III. And in this case, substitute "drug made of dead people" for "gun"--make USE of something icky and cool like that in the Plot Proper.

High points include... well, there's about a minute and half of Paris Hilton writhing around in bondage gear that has only sealed her eventual fate of being chained to my throne garbed in Slave Leia togs sometime in the dystopian future. I've included her photo as my only visual here because, frankly, it's all you need to see. The more we can forget that the rest of the cast was involved, the happier we'll all be.


Pee Ess: If you're not Russ Meyer, you're not allowed to use exclamation points in your film title.

Pee Pee Ess: Changed my email address over there since Comcast is friggin' HELLA-VEXING. You can find me at Gmail now (with the rest of the civilized world).