Repo! The Genetic Opera

Repo! The Genetic Opera – 2008 – United States

It’s cool that we live in a world where something like Repo! The Genetic Opera occasionally gets made. I don’t say that because Repo! is especially great or original. But it’s such a strange combination of concepts that there were probably a lot of barriers that had to be overcome to make it. It’s a dystopian sci-fi story set in a future where rich people are addicted to plastic surgery, and poor people have their organs repossessed by kinky-looking, gas mask-wearing repo men. It’s also an actual opera where almost all the dialogue is sung in an operatic style. That’s a weird contrast, and there are lots of other idiosyncrasies too. The costumes and sets have a gothic aesthetic. There are animated comic book interludes. And it’s pretty gory too.

Poor Things

Poor Things – 2023 – Ireland, England, United States

The story of Frankenstein is eternal. Last month saw the release of both Lisa Frankenstein (a kitschy horror comedy) and Poor Things (also a comedy of sorts). Those two movies are totally different, and that says a lot about the adaptability of Frankenstein.

A mad scientist finds the body of a pregnant women who committed suicide. Although she is dead, her baby is alive, so he implants the baby’s brain in the woman’s body. The result is Bella, a woman who loves life and is often violent, hedonistic, and totally ignorant of social mores. She also loves sex to an extreme degree. Poor Things has a lot of sex in it.

Poor Things is quite funny when Bella’s immature attitudes, destructive impulses, and wanton sexuality cause a bunch of awkward situations. However, it explores some serious themes in a thoughtful way. By growing up outside of society, Bella is able to question social norms, and as her maturity and understanding grow over the course of the movie, she becomes a little wiser than the rest of us. Sexism is one of the many themes explored in Poor Things as the various men in Bella’s life (her mad scientist “father” and various lovers she has) try to control and imprison her.

The Untamed

The Untamed – 2016 – Mexico

This movie has some seriously bad vibes, man. The Untamed explores several themes (addiction, abusive relationships, self-destructive behavior), and all of them are depressing. Everything about the movie is unpleasant and grotesque, and this is reinforced with lots of subtly unsettling imagery. There is a slimy, tentacled alien, but some of the mundane images are just as gross. A man lays half-submerged in a muddy people. A kid scratches at a rash on his face after he has an allergic reaction. A big heap of meat sits on a counter. I hated all of it, but somehow I still liked this movie.

Pitch Black

Pitch Black – 2000 – United States

Of all the movies inspired by Alien (1979), this is the only one starring Vin Diesel. Actually, that’s probably not even true. In any case, Pitch Black is a reasonably entertaining movie, but it isn’t a very remarkable one, and I’m a little surprised that Vin Diesel’s character Riddick went on to have a whole series of movies. He is a hardboiled criminal of ambiguous morality whose most defining feature is that he can see in the dark. Maybe I should watch another Riddick movie and see what all the fuss is about.

Pitch Black takes place on a planet with 3 suns that only experiences darkness during a solar eclipse every 22 years. During that rare nightfall, swarms of light-averse, pterodactyl-like monsters fly out of their caves and eat all life on the surface. A motley crew of travelers is space-wrecked and must survive the monster-filled darkness. There is some squabbling and backstabbing, and most of them get killed.

Event Horizon

Event Horizon – 1997 – United States, England

I like this movie. In fact, I like it so much, that I wrote an essay about it for my college cinematography course. Event Horizon isn’t especially original. It’s basically Alien (1979) combined with a haunted house story with a bit of Hellraiser (1987) thrown in, but that sounds like a winning combination to me. Director Paul W. S. Anderson (director of Mortal Kombat and Death Race) and actor Laurence Fishburne are always a delight.

In the year 2047, an outer space rescue team goes to Neptune to recover a ship that disappeared while testing an experimental warp drive. The ship is abandoned, and the only clues are some bloody remains and a series of violent and surreal video recordings from the crew. It turns out that the warp drive accidentally transported the ship to Hell, and the crew were all possessed by demons. As the rescue team uncovers the mystery, they are plagued by hallucinations and specters from their past. Eventually, one of them is possessed by a demon, and then the murders start.

Death Race

Death Race – 2008 – United States

Remakes aren’t always bad. The Thing (1981) is better than The Thing from Another World (1951). The Fly (1986) is better than The Fly (1958). I don’t know if Death Race is better than Death Race 2000 (1975), but it’s pretty dang good. As far as I’m concerned, director Paul W. S. Anderson (who also directed Event Horizon and the original Mortal Kombat) can walk on water, but I haven’t looked through his filmography in a while, so don’t try and prove me wrong.

In the dystopian future, the U.S. economy has collapsed. No one has a job, and crime is rampant. Overcrowded prisons are for-profit institutions, and they make money by selling pay-per-view subscriptions to deadly gladiatorial games starring convicts.

Mask of Zeguy

Mask of Zeguy – 1993 – Japan

I’ve had an irrational desire to watch Mask of Zeguy for years. There is no good reason for this. I knew it would be crappy and not make any sense, and I was right. But sometimes, a person gets an idea in their head and can’t get it out. To me, Mask of Zeguy seemed like the quintessential dumb anime OVA, and I had to know how true that was.

In short, it was completely true. Mask of Zeguy is such a pastiche of other anime that it could almost pass as a parody. A high-school girl gets warped into a magical world. She is searching for her lost friend, and she might also be an immortal priestess of an ancient religion. Isn’t this also the plot of Fushigi Yugi (1995)?

Crime Zone

Crime Zone – 1988 – United States/Peru

In the grungy, dystopian future, poor people are forbidden from having sex (except in specially approved brothels). The reason for this law isn’t clear, but to enforce it, police break into people’s homes, hold them at gunpoint, and inspect their dicks to make sure they aren’t horny. This sounds like a porn parody of 1984, but it isn’t porn, and it isn’t really a comedy.

Two poor people fall in love. To escape oppression, they become spies for a rival country. The twist (also borrowed from 1984) is that the rival country doesn’t really exist. The lovers (now wanted criminals) are just pawns in a government propaganda campaign to perpetuate a fake war.

Jupiter Ascending

Jupiter Ascending – 2015 – United States

Everybody I’ve ever talked to about this movie has one of two reactions. One: They have never heard of it. Or two: They think it’s a pile of crap. The Wachowskis (directors of The Matrix) are the sort of directors that wear their influences on their sleeves, and Jupiter Ascending is a good example of that. Someone once described it as “Stars Wars mixed with an anime”. I don’t know if that is a perfect summary, but it gets close.

Jupiter Ascending tells the story of Jupiter, a custodial worker from Russia who doesn’t realize she is actually the princess of Earth. An alien noble family wants her dead so they can claim Earth, harvest all its people, and process their bodies into a drug that makes people immortal. These aliens are some really bad folks. They are cruel and decadent, and they wipe out entire civilizations for the purpose of creating their life-giving elixirs. Coming to the aid of Jupiter is a super-soldier with pointy ears and cool boots that let him skate on air. Apparently he is half wolf. Also featured are alien greys, dragon people, and many varieties of rubber forehead-type aliens.

Phase IV

Phase IV – 1974 – United States

I’ve been meaning to watch this movie for 20 years. I knew it would be interesting, but I underestimated how interesting. After getting zapped with space radiation, a colony of ants become sapient. Two scientists build a geodesic dome laboratory in the middle of the ants’ turf. Their goal is to study the ants, but one scientist becomes obsessed with destroying them, and the other becomes obsessed with communicating with them. The scientists squabble while fending off the increasingly hostile and intelligent ants.