The Goth Club

In the future, society will be run by goths that have to sing every time they experience strong emotions.

In all seriousness though, this is actually quite a good film.
I first heard about it with the line “…and it’s meant to be the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the Twenty-First Century”. Well, it’s not quite as catchy, but it definitely ends in nearly as pointless a manner, I’ll definitely give it that.
But don’t let a negative comment right at the beginning put you off. This is actually a rather good movie / musical.

It’s based on a stage production of the same name, and for the most part the changes are minimal, thankfully. Furthermore, unlike so many things that fall into this category, the original writer has actually stuck around to make sure it follows his original vision. In fact, he’s one of the parts that gets to sing (and does so quite well). You’ll spend most of the movie picking your brain trying to figure out who he is, and then just assuming he’s some random singer from a goth band… and you’ll be wrong.

Storyline wise, this film is pretty out there, but not too unpredictable. A dystopian future world (when was the last time you remember seeing the sun? I wanna go to Shell Beach!) in which a mysterious plague starts killing millions of people. In steps the evil medical corporation that enslaves everyone to payment plans that’d make Cash Converters look like a good deal. In comes legalised organ repossession. In comes people basically becoming slaves to the only company that can save their life. What I really don’t get about storyline like this is where the hell did all the people in coffee table B.A. degrees go? I mean, surely these anarcho-radicals would love to get some molotov cocktails on during happy hour? And PETA? Where the fuck are they in their “no animal reasearch” stance in this particular future? I’m kind of hoping they were the first to die in the plague, honestly, but you have to wonder if some people would really give up everythign they supposedly believe in just to live a few more days. Oh, and did I ask where the sun went? Why does nothing ever happen in daytime during these things?

Just a few ponderables. Now on to the review!

The musical numbers in this are pretty damn good for a rock-opera. Unfortunately, they’re nowhere near as catchy as the The Rocky Horror Picture Show tracks. With that said, they are still quite good.
Thanks to Buffy!, we all knew Anthony Stewart Head could sing… but as it turns out, so can Paris Hilton. No, really! Yeah, she’s still a slut, and it’s quite hilarious when her face falls off (literally) mid-number in one scene, but she does well, and actually deserves her part in this. Her acting is still at porno level, sadly.
Paul Sorvino’s got some pipes on him, and pulls off the baritone parts with amazing depth that even sounds like it wasn’t touched up much in the mix. You may remember him from Baz Luhrmann’s truly awful remake of Romeo & Juliet, where he was one of the few people actually looked like he had read the script, let alone the original play.
Finally, Sarah Brightman. While not the original choice for the character of Blind Mag, considering that she’s been in pretty much every London production of an Andrew Lloyd Webber production since ever, she was definitely a fantastic choice. It’s just kind of a pity she happens to go all Dr. Wier on us at the end.

The costumes for this film are pretty nice, although nothing you wouldn’t find at a slightly more upmarket goth club, where you’ve got more people in IT than generally unemployed, and are unlikely to quibble over the price of $3.50 champagne & cordial because they’re trying to figure out how to buy cheap speed that’s cut with the finest dish washing powder ALDI can sell.
Sorry, being negative again. The costumes are good. Really. But where this film really excels is in the costume effects. If you like gore, and people wearing each others faces, then you’re going to like this for no other reason.

Visually the film is quite impressive. More so because it wasn’t even shot on film.

Buy me for loved ones! Preferably that are young & impressionable

The CGI fly arounds of a city that’s mostly a cemetery are pretty well done, although it gets hard to believe that any modern American city would become so small, and that people would actually bother to convert so much of it into a graveyard. Let’s face it, we all know yanks are lazy,a nd they’d probably just end up turning all the dead into protein bars.The sets really are something else though. Whilst no doubt done a budget similar to a singular episode of Buffy (there’s that A.S.H. reference again!), they are quite impressive, and have a fair bit of depth to them, looking realistic in a way that a lot of Sci Fi and Fantasy sets simply don’t, unless you happen to have the kinds of budgets given to Peter Jackson.

Honestly, I really quite like this one. I don’t think it’ll become ap arty favourite for karaoke, because the songs actually require people to have a bit of range, and be able to do a bit more than drunkenly go “mamamememarra AND BRING YOUR KNEES IN TIIIIIGHT!”, but I definitely think it is one for watching with friends over a couple of glasses of wine, and maybe playing a drinking game every time someone gets slashed or stabbed… Maybe even listening to a few of the tracks on your Mp3 player of choice.

You can buy it Repo! The Genetic opera from Amazon on Blu-ray or DVD. You can probably get the Mp3 and CD soundtrack from there as well, but I think I shilled this blog post enough for one review.

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Tags: Movie Review, Musicals, SciFi

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 11:44 pm by Egofreaky and is filed under Films. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.