Best known for novels like Frankenstein (1818) and Dracula (1897), Repo! transplants the genre into the modern era, pushing the themes of its predecessors up to eleven and adding an infusion of nu metal sounds. The Gothic includes a common set of elements including: virginal maidens, tortured men, supernatural monsters, and exploring the hereditary illnesses that often manifested in European aristocratic families. While the film’s plot quickly becomes overcomplicated with secret motivations, and convoluted backstories (“a tale befitting any opera,” as it were), it is these two relationships that make up the bulk of the film’s runtime and provide the moral backbone to it, as well as placing it squarely within the long tradition of gothic literature. The film also focuses on Shilo’s relationship with her overprotective father Nathan (Anthony Steward Head), a ‘doctor’ and widower who keeps her locked away under the pretext of keeping her safe from the outside world.
Chief among these concerns is passing GeneCo off to seventeen year-old Shilo (Alexa Vega), the daughter of Rotti’s former lover, thus preventing the company from defaulting into the hands of his three spoiled adult children: Luigi (Bill Moseley), Pavi (Nivek Ogre), and Amber (Paris Hilton). When Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino), CEO of GeneCo, learns that he is dying of a terminal illness, he sets out to tie up the loose ends from his past. The film takes place in a near future dystopia where organ transplants have become necessary for all, and are leased out to patients on the condition that if they don’t make their loan payments in time, a ‘Repo Man’ sent by the megacorporation GeneCo will come to collect. Under its absurd gore and teen angst surface, Repo! tells a deeply sincere story about the corrupting nature of wealth and the sacrifices parents make so that their children will not repeat their failures. The film is so straight forward and over-the-top that it is able to cut through the burnout many are feeling, and provides an opportunity to laugh at the things we fear in a controlled environment. While contemporary films struggle to make sense of how the world has changed without being preachy or exploitative (looking at you, Songbird) Repo! has the benefit of age and a lack of expectations around solving every social issue in a two hour runtime. Ironically enough, it is exactly the film’s numbness and callousness in the face of mass death and suffering that makes Repo! a camp masterpiece, and a horrifyingly prescient vision of the United States now twelve years since its initial release.
Like other “so bad it’s good” films, Repo! becomes entertaining not through offering a nuanced exploration of its themes, but through trying and failing to let the audience know how cool and edgy it is. They also are the best way to describe the world of 2008’s largely forgotten cult musical Repo! The Genetic Opera, a film described by writer Darren Smith as “ Blade Runner meets Rocky Horror.” While originally meant to be a critique of cosmetic surgery and reality television in the 2000s, the film is now best known for looking and sounding like the unloved daughter of My Chemical Romance and Evanescence, screaming about how we live in a society. When considered together, these three factors feel like a clear summary of the United States’ response to the Covid-19 pandemic. What do you get when you cross a medical nightmare, a cyberpunk dystopia, and a succession crisis? At first glance, the answer may seem obvious.
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