By KEVIN HOOVER
Darren Lynn Bousman’s REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA defied expectations and, depending on the audience, explanation. Released in 2008 after Bousman had finished his contributions to Saw’s adolescence, the rock opera about organ transplants and the grisly consequences for those who fall behind on their payments was never going to make friends with studio suits. No matter, REPO!’s legacy was steadily being built at underground stage performances long before Billy the Puppet pedaled into our lives.
Darren Lynn Bousman
An opera in every sense as nearly every line of dialog is encapsulated in song and set against a metal-infused classical score, REPO! continues to resonate with contemporary viewers as “Our Rocky Horror,” earning its rightful designation in the middle-finger-to-every-fucker-that-doesn’t-get-it space. And REPO! is more than just catchy tunes and remarkable visual effects. It’s a tale of dueling fathers: one disappointed to the hilt with his progeny; the other, fearful that he may be the very thing that his daughter needs protection from. It’s an enterprising, drug-slinging graverobber whose street smack helps ease the pain. It’s Paul Sorvino, Bill Moseley and a cast so disproportionate to one another professionally, yet so perfectly matched creatively. Most important, it’s the manifestation of a years-long promise that Bousman made to Terrance Zdunich and Darren Smith that this thing – their thing – would one day be all of ours to sing and cosplay and shadowcast to our GeneCo-branded heart’s content.
And it all starts with a little glass vial.
Nowadays, Bousman is busy running online auction house Attic Acquisitions where he liquidates the many eclectic things he’s collected over the years, alongside screen-used props. And although busy prepping to promote his latest film, The Cello, Bousman sat down with RUE MORGUE to chat about the last fifteen years of REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA.
Saw II, III and IV all premiere within a year of one another, yet somewhere in between you managed to film a pitch about organ repossession stylized as a rock opera. Originally called The Necromerchant’s Debt, how does this project wind up on the radar of one of horror’s most successful directors at the height of his career?
Growing up, I was very active in the theater departments of my schools. As I got more involved, I realized that the joy I took from theater wasn’t getting on stage and acting out a character – it was allowing myself to be immersed in a fictional world. And I wanted to create the world; I wanted to be a director. I wanted to go to film school, but being in Kansas, KU didn’t have a huge film community. Instead, I majored in theater which kept the love of that stuff very much alive. But it wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted, so I journeyed to Florida where I went to film school. Then I came to Los Angeles, and I had this idea about what was it that made me different from the 70 million other people who all wanted to be filmmakers. For me, the type of art I wanted to make was dangerous; subversive. If I look back at my favorite filmmakers, they’re all people who were on the fringe, whether that’s Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch or Terry Gilliam. I met with this guy who saw my talent in a couple of short films, and he asked me what I wanted to do. I told him rock operas, and he asked, “Why?” I gave him this impassioned speech about how Jesus Christ Superstar, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Tommy and Phantom of the Paradise changed my life. He said, “This might be a serendipitous encounter; I have something very weird. I don’t know if you’re going to respond to it, but you’ve got to look at it.” It was The Necromerchant’s Debt. At that point, it was the libretto for the stage play – much different than what the movie is – and a five-song CD sampler. I read it and listened to it and was blown away. This wasn’t standard or ordinary; it was exactly what I wanted to do. I reached out to Terrance (Zdunich) and Darren (Smith). We were three artists all struggling to make a name for ourselves, and I think we all saw each other with a unique opportunity. At that time, I hadn’t directed any movies, but I was very passionate, so I got a small theater on Hollywood Blvd.
If I remember correctly, it was supposed to be a two-weekend engagement, but when the tickets went on sale, we sold out immediately. What was fun about this show was that it was so edgy and dark. We had two window display cases, and we hung body parts and had sexy photos of Genterns. And when I say we hung body parts, we hung body parts. Terence would go to the butcher and buy pig hearts and things. It was vile, but it was edgy. We ended up extending again and again; I think, in total, we probably did two months on what was supposed to be a two-weekend show. When I left the stage show, I told Terrance and Darren that if I ever made it as a filmmaker, I’m making this as a movie. Cut to two years later: I’m directing Saw II, and when it comes out number one, Lionsgate asked me what I wanted to do. I said a rock opera. They laughed and said, “We’ll give you Saw III.” So Saw III comes out number one, and again I get that same call. I knew they wanted me to come back for Saw IV, so I said, “You want me and I want you. I’ll do Saw IV for you, but only if you make REPO! for me.” They agreed and I was able to make that phone call to the boys and say, “Remember that promise I made you a few years back? We’re doing it.” We shot a ten-minute short with some friends of mine: Michael Rooker, Shawnee Smith … and we put together this film. That short was what Lionsgate finally watched and said, “OK, we’ll make this movie.”
Revising from stage to screen sees widespread changes. Roles were recast, with Rooker, Shawnee and others replaced by talent culled from as diverse a talent pool as anyone could imagine. The legendary Paul Sorvino; horror’s most versatile actor Bill Mosely; the unequaled opera songstress Sarah Brightman. And surprisingly, Paris Hilton. How does this assemblage come together?
The defining thing of my career is the “what the fuck” factor. The art of mine that has been most successful – and for every success, I have ten failures – are the projects I did that caused anyone witnessing them to say, “What the fuck is he thinking?” In retrospect, the biggest successes have been when I had the biggest balls and had nothing to lose. Saw II – they didn’t know they had a franchise at that point. There wasn’t the scrutiny that came with subsequent films; it was just, “Let this guy who wrote the script do a sequel that may or may not be successful.” Then Saw II comes out, it’s wildly successful and you have more eyes on it. With REPO!, I wanted to make something weird that spoke to a certain type of individual. I was coming off three sequels, about to do a remake, and I wanted to do something wholly original. I wanted the casting to reflect that. Originally, the casting was much different: Avril Lavigne as Shilo Wallace; Jon Bon Jovi as Repo Man. These are all ideas that were thrown at us. I kept saying, “No, this isn’t right. This isn’t what you want.” We wanted it to be as edgy as Rocky Horror. The first package I gave them had two names: Alexa Vega was always who I wanted for Shilo. I remember that I went to her agent, who ultimately passed on the project. They said she regretfully declined, and I refused to accept that answer. I found out she was in a Broadway show, so I flew to New York and reached out on her Myspace page. I begged and pleaded for her to listen to the soundtrack and read the script. Turns out she had never even been given the script by her agent! She read it that night, called me the next day, and said she was in.
With Repo Man, I had a list of five names: number one was Anthony Stewart Head. I wanted somebody who looked sympathetic yet also dangerous; attractive, yet different than your typical leading man. I was a huge fan of Buffy, but more a fan of a musical episode they did called “Once More, with Feeling.” No one originally wanted him cast; that was a flat-out “no” to me, so we had to go through the process with numerous people. Lenny Kravitz, Jon Bon Jovi … there was a list of names, and most wouldn’t even take the meeting. The one person we did cast who I thought was fantastic was Patrick Swayze. This guy was awesome, and his singing was next level. We cast him, I think we got five of his songs recorded, and then he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and backed out. When that happened, we were four weeks away from starting prep in Toronto and there was a massive ticking clock. At that point, I was able to get Anthony Stewart Head. Everyone else kind of went around them. I knew that I wanted there to be an outlandish Amber Sweet. We met with 30 actresses, and Paris came in and was the only one that blew us away. Not only did she read the script, but she came with this notebook packed full of notes and renderings. I was able to have an intelligent conversation about the character with her, so she got cast. Then I wanted to balance it out with a serious actor that everyone would know, so Paul Sorvino came in. Looking at punk rock and what’s going to give us give us underground credibility, we went to Ogre. Bill Moseley I’ve been a fan since the very first time I saw him in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, so he was a no-brainer. It all came together in a very weird, “what the fuck” way to match the concept of what REPO! was.
REPO! is as much an opera as the title suggests, in that music drives the story and nearly all dialog is delivered through song. How challenging is the plotting, pacing and editing of a project like this when compared to more traditional films like Saw?
I think that there was a misconception or preconception of what this should be. I consider myself a quasi-expert on musical theater and I have a severe hatred of some musicals and absolute admiration for others. It’s such a subjective art form. I had a specific vision for what I wanted REPO! to be; all three of us did. I know that the studio early on wanted there to be talking breaks because they thought the audience might be inundated with so much music that they would need a reprise. It was a constant fight for the movie that we wanted to make; it’s an opera in every sense of the word. Every line, every emotion is sung. There’s music throughout the entire thing. This was not a movie about, “Let’s give the audience a break.” I wanted it to be a cacophony of music and sound and I wanted to assault you. I think we accomplished exactly what we set out to do.
There’s a lot of music in the film, nearly 60 individual pieces. How daunting was it to create so much?
That’s the genius of our sound and music teams. There were so many people involved in that from the inception. From Darren and Terrence who wrote the music and the lyrics to Joe Bishara, Sean E. DeMott, and a guy named Yoshiki who were the music team on the mixing and producing of the album, to eventually Urban Audio who I’ve worked with for decades and did the final mix on everything in the movie. We had session players from Jane’s Addiction to Bauhaus to White Zombie. We wanted the music to have that punk rock feel, so instead of hiring a classic violinist, we’d hire a rock star. Moments where there’s background singing, we could have hired an extra, but we hired Poe. The music had to be a ten, so it wasn’t an afterthought. The hardest thing for me to wrap my head around as a filmmaker was that we were locking in the performances before going to set, where normally you get on set and experiment. For example, say you have a dramatic scene of Anthony Stewart Head singing to Shilo. Imagine this was recorded a month before he went to set. Tony had been there for a day and a half recording this highly emotional song that he’s going to have to lip sync back to a month later when he understands just how crazy the world is and the importance of the set pieces. It’s almost like it was its own movie to create the soundtrack. I think in another life I would have been a musician or a failed rock star of some sort, so those three musicals I did – this and the two Devil’s Carnival films – allowed me to live in the rock star world for a little bit.
Upon release, REPO! falls flat with the critics; expected, considering its unwillingness to squeeze into an archetype. Factor in the lack of studio promotion, and your intended audience doesn’t even know the film exists. So you guys hit the road with the REPO! Road Tour. What was the experience like and was there any disdain for the studio not putting more muscle behind such a personal project?
This is a business, and the glitzy, glamorous part is what people see in the trailers and the premiers. But the actual behind-the-scenes of making a movie is monotonous, frustrating, boring and enraging all at the same time because there are so many things that you go through. I’d sit in the editing room for months rewatching the same ten seconds of footage over and over to make everything work. Then you go in and spend months on the sound design, especially on a movie like this. After all that’s done, the visual effects get put in. When we did REPO! originally, we did what’s known as a scratch track. This is done with only one or two instruments and the vocal performance, but the vocal performance is usually just a click track, like a metronome and maybe a piano behind it and the character’s voice. I got my director’s cut done but I don’t have the full music or visual effects, and the studio wanted to test it. I remember being so enraged that they were going to test without the proper music or the visual effects – how can you even get a barometer of what people think? I was sitting in the test screenings watching the confusion on everyone’s faces as the movie started and they’re hearing not the music that you hear now, they’re hearing click, click, click. Then the song starts against green screens.
Once the movie ended it received one of the most atrocious test scores ever, like 12% of people would have recommended it. Lionsgate decided from a business standpoint that this wasn’t worthy of the $30 million P&A (prints and advertising) that would have to be put into it, and I lost my shit because I felt like the deck was completely stacked against us. This is a rock opera! You had to have that mix and that power music. They told me they were going to put it in two theaters: one in L.A. and one in New York. I was able to get them to agree that if it did well on its opening weekend they would expand. It comes out and does very well in the two theaters, so I’m excited. Then I got the phone call Monday morning: “Darren, congratulations! The movie did well. We’re going to expand you to Anchorage, Alaska.” I realized at that point that I’m fucked; we’re fucked; it’s fucked. I met with the head of Lionsgate and pleaded with him to give me the movie. I said, “You’re going to make your money on DVDs. Let me take the movie and try to raise awareness for this thing.” They were awesome and said, “Sure. Go have fun.” That’s what started the roadshows. We four-walled the theaters, promoted ourselves, and started driving this motherfucker across the United States and eventually the world, numerous times over. Every time we did we’d be met with sold-out crowds and insane reactions, which was the fuel to the fire of this thing becoming what it is now.
Whenever a movie develops a cult following like REPO! continues to do, there’s a natural curiosity as to whether there will be sequels. The Devil’s Carnival and Alleluia! stood in as spiritual successors, but there was chatter that a trilogy was always in the cards. What happened?
Business happened. Here’s the reality: everyone who put money into REPO! made it back, but when you look at a movie like Saw, it makes its money back on opening night. Spiral made its money back on opening weekend. Most movies make their money back in the first two to four days; it took a year and a half or two years for REPO! to make its money back. For them (Lionsgate), it was a risk not worth taking. That said, nothing would make me happier than to have a sequel. We actually took very big steps to do one. We wrote the treatment and, before Devil’s Carnival, had everyone get together to shoot another short film: Alexa, Anthony, even the dead characters. We were going to shoot this idea and it was awesome, but the reality came into how tangled up the rights were and how hard it was going to be to do while one movie was still at a financial loss. So instead, we did Devil’s Carnival and hoped that Lionsgate would see and understand how big this thing is. I never give up; you see sequels that come out 30 years later. I truly believe that there’s an eager and hungry audience for this and I think there are more than enough avenues between Hulu and Netflix and all these other things that would make it make sense. There’s also that live component that would make sense. I’m not dead yet, I’m only 44, so hopefully someday my phone will ring and they’ll say, “Hey, we want to do the sequel.” But that phone call has to happen.
For more information on REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA and Darren Lynn Bousman’s other projects, visit here.
