REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA

 

Publicity poster for Repo! The Genetic Opera (© Darren Lynn Bousman/Twisted Pictures/Lionsgate – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 11 July 2021, my evening movie watch was the DVD of Repo! The Genetic Opera, which, after recently spotting it ensconced inexplicably within the children's DVDs section of a local charity shop, I'd duly purchased. Just as well, really, because I feel certain that if an unsuspecting child had bought this movie and watched it, they may well have been traumatised for life! Let's put it this way, Repo! The Genetic Opera is not so much a movie musical as a slasher flick set to music!

Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, and released by Lionsgate in 2008, Repo! The Genetic Opera is the movie version of the eponymous cult stage musical written by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich (the latter of whom also stars in this movie). Now, call me odd if you will but, with the notable exception of Sweeney Todd, I hadn't normally thought of blood, gore, disembowellings, and worse as the stuff of musicals – not until I watched this scarlet-spurting serving of Grand Guignol-infused Gothic horror/rock'n'roll, that is. Let's just say that Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music it most definitely ain't, that's for sure!

True, this monstrously macabre musical does star Phantom of the Opera veteran Sarah Brightman. Yet compared to the rapacious, mass-slaughtering nightmare in human form that is its principal antagonist, i.e. the Repo Man, the Phantom is a mere dilettante in the blood-letting business!

Set mostly in the year 2056, the basic premise of Repo! The Genetic Opera is that mass organ failures have placed the continuing survival of humanity in an exceedingly precarious position, requiring organ transplants on a massive scale. This in turn has enabled the planet's leading transplant and genetic research company, GeneCo, to become unimaginably rich, charging exorbitant fees for transplants in the form of payment plans.

Moreover, if a client defaults on their plan, a merciless, greatly-feared Repo Man is sent out under cover of darkness on their hapless trail by GeneCo in order to retrieve the transplanted organ – removing it directly from his debtor victim's body by whatever grisly means he considers necessary. And if – as is generally the case – the debtor has to be killed by the Repo Man in order for said organ to be extracted successfully, so be it. Not surprisingly, people requiring transplants do whatever they possibly can, taking whatever paid work they can find, to ensure that they are able to keep up their payments.

Most dreaded of all is the head Repo Man, a sinister figure played by Anthony Head, whose alter ego is Nathan Wallace ,a seemingly kindly widower by day who looks after his sickly daughter Shilo (Alexa Vega), who is supposedly suffering from a blood disease inherited from her now-deceased mother. Shilo is so frail that Wallace (whom she mistakenly assumes is a medical doctor by trade and has no idea that he is a Repo Man at night) insists that she remain indoors permanently.

 

Terrance Zdunich as GraveRobber (© Darren Lynn Bousman/Twisted Pictures/Lionsgate – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

However, one evening while he is out, busily and brutally conducting his nefarious nocturnal duties for GeneCo, Shilo ventures outside at long last, visiting her mother's tomb in the local cemetery. While there, she encounters a somewhat bizarre but not unfriendly itinerant peddler youth known only as GraveRobber (Terrance Zdunich), who is also busy, but in his case extracting from some freshly-disinterred corpses a very valuable – and highly-addictive – pain-killing substance known as Zydrate that he then sells to customers in order to help him maintain his own transplant payments to GeneCo. Despite his macabre activities, GraveRobber becomes Shilo's only friend, and also acts as the movie's narrator.

Meanwhile, GeneCo's terminally-ill CEO, Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino), is so disgusted by all three of his worthless offspring – Amber (obsessed with plastic surgery and Zydrate; played by Paris Hilton), Luigi (a homicidal psychopath; played by Bill Moseley), and Pavi (a narcissistic effete freak wearing a woman's skinned face over his own grossly disfigured visage; played by Nivek Ogre aka Kevin Ogilvie) – that he has decided to make Shilo his heir instead. His reason for this is that her mother was once his fiancé before marrying Wallace. Needless to say, this decision does not sit well with Largo's terrible trio…

 

Sarah Brightman as Blind Mag (© Darren Lynn Bousman/Twisted Pictures/Lionsgate – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Also entangled within this twisted, warped web of disillusionment, death, and deceit is Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman), a famous opera singer whose nickname stems from having been born blind. She hates working for GeneCo as its celebrity spokesperson, but has no choice, because she was given bionic eyes by GeneCo on condition that she works for them indefinitely.

There are a number of additional complexities featuring shared histories that link these highly disparate characters to one another, the unravelling of which leads inevitably to further carnage and catastrophe, culminating in not so much a night at the opera as a veritable slasher fest that no-one will ever forget – those who actually survive it, that is.

Gore and horror fans will love this film, musical fans probably less so, if only because, sadly, the numerous songs in it (no fewer than 58, in fact!) are irredeemably unmemorable. Less than a day after watching the movie, I couldn't even recall, let alone hum, a single melody from it, not even the hesitantly harmonious, melancholic song 'Chase the Morning' sung by Blind Mag when she first meets Shilo, or the more operatic offering 'Chromaggia' that Mag sings just before gouging out her implanted artificial eyes – yes, it is definitely 'that' kind of movie!

Brightman, Head, Sorvino, and especially Vega and Zdunich, play their parts well, but are let down by the tunelessness of the music (thereby comparing unfavourably with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, probably the most similar movie musical currently out there), the unrelentingly dark visuals that quite literally overshadow some exquisitely beautiful Gothic ornamentations, and the overlong scenes of slaughter and bloodshed, which greatly dilute the unfolding story's interest. Less is so often more.

Nevertheless, Repo! The Genetic Opera is such an offbeat entry within its somewhat limited cinematic category – a fascinating, febrile fusion of torrid terror, shocking sci fi, and raw rock – that it should definitely be viewed by anyone who is a fan of such genres.

If you feel that you can keep your nerves in check long enough to sit through an official trailer for Repo! The Genetic Opera, be sure to click here and watch one on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

My official UK DVD of Repo! The Genetic Opera (© Darren Lynn Bousman/Twisted Pictures/Lionsgate – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

POWDER

 

Publicity poster for Powder (© Hollywood Pictures/Caravan Pictures/Roger Birnbaum Productions/Daniel Grodnick Productions/Buena Vista Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Having watched an inordinate number and variety of movies at home this year due in no small way to the frequent Covid-enforced lockdowns and attendant ongoing social restrictions, I suppose that I'm possibly at risk of becoming somewhat blasé to films that under normal circumstances might have moved me more than they have done. But not last night, when I watched on DVD a film that didn't so much move me as spin me around in a veritable vortex of emotion, bowling me over with the raw power of the thunder and rending me asunder with the electrifying energy of the lightning that form such an integral part of this truly awesome movie. Its title? Powder.

SPOILER ALERT – I need and very much want to tell the story of this amazing film, so read no further if you don't want to know its plot.

Released in 1995, Powder tells the inspirational, often heartbreakingly sad, but truly extraordinary story of a truly extraordinary person. Played with immense poignancy and control by Sean Patrick Flanery, his name is Jeremy Reed, but his nickname is Powder, which, although never explained, presumably refers to his pure white skin, as pale as talcum powder. For Powder is an albino, with photo-sensitive pink eyes that he shields from the sun's pain-inducing rays behind dark sunglasses. Moreover, for reasons that subsequently become clear, he is also entirely, naturally hairless.

Powder's mother was in late pregnancy with him when she was struck by lightning during a thunderstorm. Paramedics rushed her to hospital, but tragically they were unable to save her. However, Powder was delivered alive and was in an incubator when his grief-stricken father was told the shattering news of his wife's passing. When he asked to see their baby and discovered that Powder was an albino, he disowned him. Happily, Powder's grandparents accepted him and reared him on their large but fairly isolated farm, where he grew strong, carrying out all of the chores too arduous for them. On account of his appearance, they did not send Powder to school but his grandmother home-schooled him with the many books that they kept stored in the farmhouse's cool, roomy basement, and where Powder would spend a lot of time reading them, especially when it was too hot and bright outside for his pallid skin and sensitive eyes to endure.

Eventually, Powder's grandmother died, and some time afterwards his grandfather fell over and also died, at which time Powder was in his late teens/early 20s. Very distraught, Powder phoned the police, who send out two officers to the farm (marking the beginning of the movie's principal portion), where they are shocked at Powder's appearance and strange, almost unearthly demeanour. However, one of the officers, Sheriff Doug Barnum (Lance Henriksen), sees the shy, frightened, traumatized youth behind his singular countenance, and treats him compassionately, as does the accompanying child psychologist Jessie Caldwell (Mary Steenbergen), but the other, much more brutal officer, Deputy Sheriff Harley Duncan (Brandon Smith), is visibly and verbally revulsed.

As a ward of court now, Powder is taken to a state home for dispossessed youths by Jessie, but she is able to obtain blue contact lenses for him to protect his eyes, which his grandparents had been unable to afford. She also allows him to attend a mainstream school when she discovers that he is exceptionally bright and possesses a photographic memory, having not only memorized but also thoroughly understood every page in every single book in the basement back home on his grandparents' farm. Moreover, it is now that we begin to see a very different gift also exhibited by Powder – the ability to manipulate energy, especially electrical energy, seemingly a direct outcome of having been exposed while in his mother's womb to the bolt of lightning that killed her. He can move objects by telekinesis, much to the consternation of the bullies at the state home when they tried to torment him following his arrival there.

Moreover, electricity seems irresistibly drawn to him. For instance, when a piece of demonstration equipment – a Jacob's Ladder – in his physics class at school generates a series of high-voltage, travelling electrical arcs, suddenly the electricity surges out of the equipment and fires directly into Powder's chest, raising him horizontally off the ground before physics teacher Donald Ripley (Jeff Goldblum) is able to shut it off.

Powder is rushed to hospital, but is found to be entirely unharmed, even though there is a singed hole in his shirt where the bolt of electricity struck his chest. Donald is fascinated and in awe of Powder's capabilities. He also realizes why Powder is hairless – the electricity coursing throughout every cell of his body is acting as a natural form of electrolysis. Furthermore, when a series of intelligence tests are run on him, they reveal that Powder has the highest IQ ever recorded – completely off the scale, in fact.

Inevitably, however, the youths at the state home are not impressed by this, leading to ever more bullying, which culminates in Powder's chief tormentor, John Box (Bradford Tatum), threatening him with a gun during a deer hunt. But when a deer is fatally shot there by Deputy Sheriff Duncan, Powder's normally passive, gentle nature evaporates, and he seizes Duncan's wrist at the same time as placing his own hand on the neck of the dying deer. In so doing, Powder conducts like an electrical current the pain, shock, and terror of impending death suffered by the deer directly into Duncan, who promptly collapses in a seizure, before subsequently coming round. As a result, Duncan, previously a passionate, enthusiastic hunter, gives up hunting entirely and gets rid of all of his guns, because he is unable to forget what a shot animal experiences, but he is also unable to forgive Powder for destroying his former pleasure.

By now, unloved, unwanted, misunderstood, a total outcast simply because he is different, Powder is desperate to return home to the farm, the only sanctuary that he has ever known, and where he could once again spend his days away from prying eyes and scurrilous tongues. However, he is prevented from doing so by legal probate issues, thus making him ever more agitated and, as a result, his energy-manipulating talents ever more unstable.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Doug Barnum is equally traumatized – his wife lies close to death, barely conscious and in agonizing pain from cancer, but for some mystifying reason seems determined to hold onto life, as if there is something that she wants to see done, to be achieved still. Desperate to unravel the mystery so that her cryptic wishes can be fulfilled, thereby enabling her to pass on and be free of her pain, and mindful of claims that Powder can read minds by telepathy, Doug asks him to come to his home and see if there is anything that he can do.

Powder sits beside her and gently places his hand on her brow. After a few moments, he tells Doug that his wife wishes him to make up with their son, Steven, from whom Doug has been estranged for a long time. She would also like him to place her wedding ring on her finger – it had been lost for a long time but had recently been found by Steven who had returned it in a small silver jewel box, which was now on a dressing table in the bedroom. So Doug tenderly places the ring on his wife's finger, promises that he and Steven will make up, and tells her how much he loves her, after which she smiles and passes on, her wishes all fulfilled, her pain all gone. At this point, I paused the film for a while – too many similar memories and emotions from my mother's passing.

Another, even more savage encounter with the bullies at the state home takes place a little later, but this time during a thunderstorm, in which Powder's fear and unleashed rage results in the storm's lightning discharging through him and seemingly killing Box before Powder retakes control of his powers, harnessing them to successfully restart Box's heart. As a result, one of the bullies helps Powder to escape back to his farm, only for him to discover to his despair that everything in it has been removed, even his beloved books in the basement. He sits there disconsolately as Jessie, Donald, Doug, and Deputy Sheriff Duncan all arrive, having discovered him missing at the home and either guessing or learning where he has gone.

Jessie, Doug, and Donald coax Powder to come out of the house, with Jessie and Donald promising that they will take him where no-one can ever harm or mistreat him again, where he will be appreciated for the truly astonishing person that he is. Duncan, however, grabs a police walkie-talkie, and calls for police back-up. At the same time, another thunderstorm begins, so, knowing how dangerous and unpredictable it can be for Powder to be outside in such weather, Jessie, Doug, and Donald implore him to get into their car.

Instead, in an outpouring of beatific joy and ultimate release, Powder runs across a field, laughing at last and with arms fully outstretched, greeting the storm as if it were a dear friend, with the others following close behind and greatly alarmed, until suddenly, an enormous bolt of lightning strikes down from the heavens, hitting Powder with explosive force – and he is gone.

During his brief time spent with Jessie, Donald, and Doug since being discovered after his grandfather had died, Powder had always emphasized that everything and everyone is connected to everything else and everyone else. For we are all energy, and as we all learned at school, energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred from one form to another. This had greatly comforted Doug following his wife's passing, and is a concept that I hold onto dearly myself, with my own family no longer here in physical, tangible form. And now, Powder had become one with the electrical energy that had infused him even before he was born and had utilized him like a living capacitor throughout his life. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, but energy undying, unending, universal, forever. So be it.

This very pure, enormously affecting movie, which reminded me a little at times of The Boy Who Could Fly (click here to read my review of it) is exquisitely complemented by the gorgeous musical theme that plays intermittently throughout it – one that I was already very familiar with, because I had first heard it many years ago, but in the form of a song, entitled 'No One Like You', which was a track on an album by British opera/musicals star Sarah Brightman, and which I loved instantly and ever afterwards. What I didn't realize until much more recently, however, is that the lyrics to this song had actually been written by Sarah herself, after having watched Powder and being greatly moved just like me by its beautiful melody. So please click here to listen to Sarah singing 'No One Like You', her heartfelt lyrics accompanying the truly sublime theme from an incomparably sublime, mesmerising movie.

If you'd like to experience the spellbinding wonder, strangeness, sadness, and beauty that is Powder, please click here to view an official trailer for it on YouTube. And if you are able to watch the full film, do so – because if it moves you the way that it has moved me, I have no doubt that this remarkable film will stay in our memory long after most others have slipped away into the void of lost remembrances that I fondly recall my mother aptly referring to as our forgettery. God bless you Mom, I wish so much that you were still here with me – but perhaps in some form you are, perhaps in some form you are still and always will be.

Finally: to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!

EVENING PRIMROSE

Evening Primrose on DVD (© ABC TV channel – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Not a movie this time, but instead a one-off near-movie-length TV special - so for one day only, Shuker In MovieLand becomes Shuker In TVLand.

On 27 April 2017, I finally tracked down another long sought-after fantasy rarity. Ever since hearing Sarah Brightman singing the haunting song 'I Remember Sky' on her album 'The Songs That Got Away', I have always hoped that one day I'd get to see the obscure 1966 made-for-American-TV musical Evening Primrose, by Stephen Sondheim (songs and lyrics), from which this song originated, because it had such a weird storyline, yet had never been made available commercially (a DVD of it now exists - see later) and never shown at all in Britain.

A group of people secretly live their entire lives inside a large department store, remaining hidden from all customers and staff during the day by posing as store mannequins, coming alive, as it were, only at night when the store is closed. None is ever allowed to leave this enclosed community in case they betray its presence in the store, and if anyone ever does try to escape they are visited by the fearful 'Dark Men', summoned by the formidable Mrs Monday, who transform them into mannequins permanently.

One day, a very disillusioned-with-life poet named Charles Snell (played very earnestly by Anthony Perkins of Psycho fame) decides to stay in the store after hours, whereupon he unexpectedly meets the closeted community, who accept him into it, but he also falls in love with one of its members, a young woman named Ella Harkins who has been there ever since she was accidentally separated from her mother while shopping there aged just 6 years old. She sings 'I Remember Sky' to the poet, in which she recalls memories from her life in the outside world, before she became part of the store's secret community all those years ago. Charles and Ella plan to escape, to make a life for themselves outside the store and in the real world, but what happens? Do they succeed?

Now, like I've done, you can find out for yourself, by clicking here to watch this fascinating 51-min-long curiosity currently accessible on Dailymotion's website. It was originally screened as part of ABC's ABC Stage 67 anthology TV series, and was in full colour, but its unique master version subsequently went missing and has never been found - tucked away in some TV/film buff's private collection, perhaps? Happily, however, the version on DailyMotion is a good-quality b/w copy. There is also an excellent webpage devoted to Evening Primrose here.

Although specifically written for television, this little-known Sondheim musical subsequently made its professional stage debut when  in July 2005 it was performed for several nights as part of the Lost Musicals series staged at London's Lilian Baylis Studio. There was also a semi-staged single-night performance held at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater on New York City on 22 October 2010.

Last but definitely not least, click here to listen to Sarah Brightman's beautiful version of the song 'I Remember Sky' that first alerted me to the existence of this unique, bewitching fantasy musical, one that so very greatly deserves to be far better known and much more appreciated than it is. Who knows, perhaps Evening Primrose will be 'rediscovered' one day and transformed into the major movie that in my view it was always meant to be?

[Update: I have now purchased the official Evening Primrose DVD, which not only contains a top-quality b/w version of it, but also includes some fascinating extras as well as a detailed booklet filled with hard-to-find facts concerning this magical but long-overlooked production's conception and history.]

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film/TV reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!