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Reviews
Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
The Future of the Musical film?
OK, here's the part everyone else is saying: It's goth! It's gory! It's bleak! What is with the Blade Runner flavor? Here's the part you're not hearing so much: this film is a revival of an art-form that has been dead for over 100 years with updates to meet modern fans. This film is an actual opera, though with mostly modern music. By opera, I mean it- there are no spoken lines and any background that would have been in a playbill in the theater is instead shown to you comic-style on the screen.
Being a revival piece, the creators had to take a few chances and pander to the film companies a little. This means there's gore and sex aplenty with a hefty dose of gritty science fiction (they were trying to avoid the too-popular slick Matrix feel with this one, and it shows). Does this mess the film up? It depends on who you ask.
People with weak stomachs or who found movies like the Crow too dark and depressing will say "YES". Meanwhile, if you recognize the sex and gore for what it is, it's quite easy to argue that all they did was amp up what would have been in the story some so the company would gamble and actually let them make a modern opera (a tall order considering that the art-form is long-dead).
If you're looking for something mainstream and Broadway, stick to Dreamgirls or Chicago. Bear in mind, now, Broadway is dying and dozens of productions had to close in the past year.
What this film is is a glimpse of the future, though slightly marred by having to pander to the studios to even get it made. In the years to come, expect to see more films and stage shows breaking away from the happy-endings, bursting out in song, and silly dance routines made to sparkle on the screen in favor of more organic-feeling and possibly gritty musical films such as this. Even if this film goes forgotten, the first mark has been made.
Skankobite (2005)
Rednecks meet Hellraiser
The acting sucks, the lighting sucks, the accents suck... but it doesn't matter. This very redneck Hellraiser parody conveys many of the original Hellraiser's themes without screaming them. If you can sit past the first 2-3 minutes, it's an amusing, though over over-the-top little film.
//spoiler!// I'd say the best part was the redneck cenobites: Hell Improvement (chatter), Mr Roadkill (pinhead) and The Waitress (Angelique). The film takes it's time introducing them and their jobs, and for some reason it seems to flow better than much of the beginning did.