DVD Review: “Repo! The Genetic Opera”

Sarah Brightman (yes, Sarah Brightman) in “Repo! The Genetic Opera” 

Rating: 32 

“Repo! The Genetic Opera” is blood-and-guts Grand Guignol spectacle, an opera without memorable arias proudly affixing a low brow to high culture by merging the “torture porn” of the “Saw” films with mainstream Goth rock. If Andrew Lloyd Webber were a serial killer in his spare time, he might stage “Repo” — this is “Phantom of the Opera” with a bad skin graft and its vital organs spilling out.

“Repo” is the adaptation of a stage play about a cybergoth future in which a plague causes massive organ failure. A company called Geneco becomes the dominant force in society by supplying expensive replacements, and repossesses the organs when customers cannot pay. At the center of the tragedy is Shiloh (Alexa Vega) the daughter of a repo man (Anthony Stewart Head), who appears to have the same blood disease that killed her mother. Meanwhile, dying Geneco head Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino) must wrestle with whether to leave Geneco to Shiloh (it’s a long, boring story) or to his wretched spawn (Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre of Skinny Puppy and, yes, Paris Hilton).