Due in theaters November 9th, Lionsgate’s “Repo! The Genetic Opera” by director Darren Lynn Bousman, based on a long-running stage production, is a musical freakshow that promises to be epic as it tells the tale of a dystopic future and the plague that forces humanity to go into debt for their very survival. The price for failing to repay your debt is organ harvesting, carried out by brutal assassins called Repo Men, the greatest of which is played by Anthony Head. The story plays out in a true opera form, which a majority of it told in song. We here at Toxic Shock TV were privileged enough to be able to preview the score from the movie, in stores this October.

Clocking in with an impressive 22 tracks, it’s definitely a mish-mash of styles that probably only missed including rockabilly in the mix. And even in that case, I’m not entirely sure. The closest thing I can really think of to compare this score to is combining popular conceptions of “opera” with a few Rob Zombie and Ministry records, and just have no problems with being seen as a little bit dramatic, a little bit ridiculous. A decent chunk of the story can be heard just listening along to this, and thinking back to what little I’ve seen in trailers of “Repo”, the soundtrack is incredibly fitting for a borderline ridiculous and almost visually obscene film.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a 6.5. It’s a little too much for me right now, but it really depends to me on how the movie is. I’ve described the idea for this film to friends as “either the greatest idea ever or a colossal fucking mistake”. The soundtrack is more or less the same. When paired with the final product of the film, this soundtrack could either be awesome, or a total wreck.

By Costa Koutsoutis