The Repo vs. Repo controversy continues.

In my last blog I use some harsh words, and I pose the question, “Did Repo Men rip-off Repo! the Genetic Opera?” What resulted was a barrage of emails and comments from both sides.

Of the many comments I received, some people disagree with the list I made and claim that I was “stretching” on many of the topics. I would just like to clarify that the point of the article was to shine a light on the many similarities. I am not calling for a boycott, not suggesting a lawsuit, and certainly not telling people not to see the movie. I was just stating the similarities in black and white. Are they debatable? Of course they are, and I want you to debate them. But the fact is; Repo Men is a different story, with some uncanny similarities.

The Repossession Mambo was a good read, I liked it, I honestly did, and I am very curious to see the film when it comes out. I admit it was frustrating reading certain parts of it, but until the movie comes out and I am able to watch it for myself, I only have the book, posters, and trailers that Universal has released to reference. The marketing of Repo Men is where everything gets tricky, and had they not virtually copied the marketing of Repo Opera, I don’t know that I ever would have bothered to look into this.

It takes many people to make and market a film, in Hollywood you run across many people that fancy themselves creative, yet they are not. There is no question in my mind that Eric Garcia is a creative personality (as I mentioned, the book IS a good read). I would imagine that Garcia himself is frustrated not only with the comparisons, but with the fact that the Repo Men marketing calls attention to the similarities.

I want to point out the two asteroid films that came out within months of each other Armageddon and Deep Impact. Both have a central story of an asteroid on path to crash into Earth. One focuses on a group of rouge anti-soldiers forced to go to space and combat it, and the other about how families in crisis cope with the devastation of the world after it hits. Two very different movies based on a similar theme. Repo Men and Repo Opera are probably just as different. Just the fact the Repo Opera is an Opera is going to make it super different. The elephant in the room is that there are more than a few examples of similarities here, and they ARE all debatable.

How did it happen?

The theories that I have been hearing are pretty interesting, and I am curious what your “theory” is. Did Garcia see the Repo Opera stage play? (He has denied this as “wholesale fiction”). Was an executive behind this? Did a script for Repo Opera influence the movie or book? Is it all just a fluke?

What are your thoughts?

SD

Is this Proof that Universal’s REPO MEN ripped–off  REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA? Judge for yourself!

By SpookyDan Walker

Time to address all the rumors about the upcoming Universal film Repo Men. I have been getting loads of emails, comments and phone calls about other repo film. Some say the imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

Did writer Eric Garcia “Repo” (steal, rip off, XXXXXXX, thieve) Repo the Genetic Opera? I want to show you first hand EXATLY how similar it is, so I got the Book Repossession Mambo, and here is a detailed list of the similarities. Check out the facts and decide for yourself.

(SPOILER ALERT!)

Here are 25 side by side comparisons of Garcia’s 2009 Novel Repossession Mambo, and the 2008 Repo the Genetic Opera: 

FINE PRINT

The front cover of the Repossession Mambo paperback book lifts dialogue directly from Repo the Genetic Opera:

Repossession Mambo: “Everybody has a price…Everybody can be bought…Just don’t forget to read the FINE PRINT”.

Repo the Genetic Opera: This echoes a line directly from Repo Opera song Zydrate Anatomy sung and repeated 4 times “Mag’s contracts got some might FINE PRINT, Some mighty fine print? Some mighty fine print, and that mighty fine print puts Mag in fine predicament”

(From this point on; “Repossession Mambo” will be referred to as “Repo Men”.)

DRUGS

Repo Men: (pg 18) Garcia introduces a anti rejection drug called “Q”. (pg120) “He sucked up enough Q to kill a Clydesdale…he offered me the sparkling red powder on six or seven occasions…” later “…the central processor was crusted over, filthy with crystallized cerebrospinal fluid. That’s what happens when your hooked on Q, and it’s a shame that even after the most expensive of artiforg implantations, he wasn’t able to reprogram himself to beat the habit.”

(Pg 234) “Fritzed on the Q.”

(Pg 271-276) details the effects of the drug Q.

Repo the Genetic Opera: Has a drug called “Zydrate”, “Z” for short. A glowing blue LIGHT gets brighter and brighter as the Z-yringe draws out “Z” from the woman’s skull. It lights the room and the dead woman.  In the song Come Up and Try My New Parts it’s referred to as “Z” when Amber sings “I want a hit of Z”

Early posters of Amber Sweet state “Z up responsibly”

Q – Sparkling red powder

Z – Glowing Blue liquid

BAR-CODED HEART

Repo Men: The poster artwork for a Repo Men poster is a picture of an artificial heart with lines on it that quite closely resemble a barcode.

Repo the Genetic Opera: since 2001 the website for Repo Opera has had an iconic image of a heart with a barcode . In the opening of the Repo Opera Film Jessica Adams is taken down by the repo man, and he holds her bar-coded heart directly up to the camera. Also a bar-coded heart is a hero prop of the song “Mark It Up”.

TITLES

Repo Men: repo men are called Bio-Repo Men

Repo the Genetic Opera: repo men are called Organ Repo Men

SCALPEL

Repo Men: (pg 5, 11, 12…) Remy uses the scalpel is weapon of choice, and talks about its efficiency

Repo the Genetic Opera: Nathan uses the Scalpel as his weapon of choice, and sings about its efficiency

RECRUITING REPO MEN

Repo Men: (pg 25, pg 224) Remy see’s …Newspaper ads “Born to Repossess …Learn the trade, Join the Union , Fulfill your destiny!”

Repo the Genetic Opera: Recruitment posters “Do you have what it takes to be an Organ Repo Man? Visit a GeneCo recruiting center for details”

EVIL CORPORATION

1A.Repo Men: calls the Evil Corporation “The Credit Union’

1B. Repo the Genetic Opera: calls the Evil Corporation “GeneCo”

2B. Repo Men: The evil corporations insert their artificial body parts into the main character, those parts are later threaten to be removed by the very people the put them there.

2B. Repo the Genetic Opera: The evil corporations insert their artificial body parts into the main character, those parts are later threaten to be removed by the very people the put them there.

ARTIFICIAL EYEBALLS

1A. Repo Men: (pg 27) Remy talks about wanting “…artiforg eyeballs, the new ones from Marshodyne have zoom capabilities of 200X and near perfect color enhancement.”

1B. Repo Men: (pg 199) “Narrowing her eyes into tiny little slit, I got the feeling that she was inspecting me again, Trying to get a hold of me. For a moment I was pretty sure I could hear mechanical lenses focusing spiraling in and out.”

1C. Repo Men: (pg 293) Remy watches a recording of a repossession “It’s Just like a movie, just like gong to the pictures” as they watch the recording through the dead mans eyes.

Repo the Genetic Opera: Blind Mags character has artificial eyes, which she received from GeneCo after being born blind. Mag is the spokesperson for GeneCo, and her eyes project holographic apparitions of past events, at which time the iris spirals in and out.

ORGAN FINANCING

Repo Men: (chapter 5) Remy discusses in great detail how the world has changed and poor people can apply for new body parts. The people are about to become the victims of The Union Bio- Repo Men, because they can’t really afford it.

Repo the Genetic Opera: In the first part of the movie comic panels describe detail how the world has changed and poor people can apply for new body parts. These people are about to become the victims of The GeneCo Organ Repo Men, because they can’t really afford it.

ESTRANGED CHILDREN

Repo Men: Remy the repo man has an estranged son.

Repo the Genetic Opera: Nathan the repo man has an estranged daughter

90 DAYS DELINQUENT

Repo Men: (Pg 39) Remy says “Ninety days is grace beyond grace, and I didn’t hold pity for anyone who welshed on a loan with straight arrows like Kenton.”

Repo the Genetic Opera: Nathan the repo man sings “Ninety days delinquent gets the Repo treatment”

WHORES

Repo Men: (pg 46) ”as San Diego has just instituted their Red Light District a year before…’ Remy recalls of his first time with a prostitute that later became his first wife.

Repo the Genetic Opera: Zydrate Anatomy song takes place in the back alley way filled with hookers and junkies.

CIRCUS for BODY PARTS

Repo Men: “…It’s not like the ones they have down at the Union Theme Park (Motto- where entertainment and rejuvenation meet)…” Remy is talking about the Park where people dressed as body parts try to entice you to get something replaced.

Repo the Genetic Opera: Sanitarium Square is a circus like environment where people dressed as weirdos and freaks try to entice you to get something replaced.

DUMPSTER DIVING

Repo Men: (pg63) “On the way downtown, I jumped into a china store and pilfered a leaded-crystal vase, along with an attending box from the trash dumpster outside.”

Repo the Genetic Opera: Graverobber jumps in dumpsters to look for used drug paraphernalia.

SKIN GRAFTS

Repo Men: (pg 102) “New skin grafts, for example, should liver spots become a problem, are available at a very reasonable rate at a Union Supply House, as are most major artiforg. implantations.”

Repo the Genetic Opera:  “Get your exotic Skin Grafts by GeneCo” tag line used on poster artwork.

DISCREETLY REMOVE CELEBRITIES

Repo Men: (pg107) “The Pink Door was often used as a last resort for deadbeats who were public figures, clients you didn’t want to drag back into the world of solvency by their dangling entrails. So rather than call out the Bio-Repo men and leave a messy Beverly Hills scene for the paparazzi, they’d send an embossed invitation, delivered by courier from the Credit union offices…”

Repo the Genetic Opera: During the song “Who ordered Pizza?” a heated discussion between Nathan Wallace and Rotti Largo, Rotti explains that Blind Mag (the spokesperson for GeneCo) needs to be discreetly taken out. “This is a job of special importance. It is involving a GeneCo employee. A singer we all know…I can’t afford a scandal here…You take her down!”

ETHER – TEAR GAS

Repo Men: (pg 117, & many more) Ether is the chemical used to knock out victims before the get a body part removed.

Repo the Genetic Opera: Tear gas containers are used to knock out Shilo and the Graverobber when caught, and used by the Hench girls to capture Shilo while inside her mothers tomb.

MUSIC

Repo Men: used throughout the book, Garcia references songs and music to illustrate points (pages 24, 118, 119, 120, 133,172, 173, 255, 271)

Repo the Genetic Opera: is an Opera, with music from start to finish.

ANIMATED DEAD AS COMIC RELEIF

Repo Men: (Pg 154-155) Remy removes an Artiforg Bladder in a routine repossession, but is alarmed when a voice is heard. He eventually finds out that it’s the dead man has had a “Vocom” communicator in his throat. As he removes the bladder from the corpse, the dead body comically continues to speak “Baby you know I love you…Come on back I swear I will never hurt you again”.

Repo the Genetic Opera: During a particularly gory sequence, The Repo man “guts” his victim to remove his liver and kidneys and then shoves his hand inside the corpse and uses him like a ventriloquist doll singing the last refrain of the song of “Thankless Job”

COMMERCIALS

Repo Men: (pg 202-203.). Remy talks about the different commercials used by The Credit Union, and its much used Slogan, “What’s new in you?”

Repo the Genetic Opera: throughout the film Commercials for body parts from GeneCo are shown and heard to “See if Surgery is right for you?”, and “At GeneCo, an affordable organ makeover is just a simple financing away. Take control of your life, because it’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

MELINDA – MARNI – THE REPO MAN KILLS HIS OWN WIFE

Repo Men: (pg 203, 204, 270-275) we are given insight that Remy’s (ex) wife has artificial organs, which is why he killed her. And this causes a bad relationship between Remy and his son. Remy explains “And that’s how I found out that Melinda was packing Metal.  I suppose it was better for me to know than as opposed to finding out later on, but I wonder if things would have changed if Peter (Remy’s son) kept his mouth shut.  Probably not. I would have killed her either way.” Later he finds Melinda strung out on Q and kills her, his son will not forgive him after this.

Repo the Genetic Opera: One of the main plot points is that Nathan Wallace had to kill his wife to save his child. Because he killed her he is tricked into being a repo man for the evil GeneCo to hide this fact from his daughter. “That dark fateful night when you murdered your wife, It’s too painful, Marni (Nathans wife) was past helping…. We made an agreement, I will honor that agreement, I will honor that agreement, I’ll do as I’m told so Shilo never knows, about that dark and fateful night, or my secret repo life, don’t deny your repo life.”

THE OUTSIDER – THE GRAVEROBBER

Repo Men: (pg 230) Remy is introduced to a vigilante named Ashbury (termed an “Outsider”). Ashbury steals artiforgs from the dead bodies and redistributes it to those in need of surgery. Ashbury sizes him up to see if he might have any artiforgs that he can take to sell on the black market. “ …there was distinct possibility he was sizing me up for artiforgs. Wondering if I could be of any financial value to him down the line.” (pg 234) Ashbury proceeds to drug the Remy with the Q drug “ on the filthy fingertips, nails long and unfiled, was a sparkling red powder glittering in the glare from the exposed overhead bulb.” He then offers Remy safe housing away from the Union

Repo the Genetic Opera: The Graverobber is a vigilante who steals drugs (Zydrate) from the dead bodies and redistributes it to those in need of surgery (or those who are just hooked on Z). Graverobber offers to help Shilo stay away from GeneCo.

REPO MAN ON THE RUN

Repo Men: (pg From the start of the book Remy is on the run from the Union, later (pg 236) “He wanted to know why I was a Bio Repo man was on the run.”

Repo the Genetic Opera: After Nathan refuses to reclaim Blind Mag’s eyes; he goes on the run from GeneCo. “Attention all GeneCo personnel: Apprehend the Repo man Nathan Wallace, at once! Use all means necessary to bring him to me.”

FLYING PERFORMERS

Repo Men: (pg 235-239) Remy recounts a story about dealing with a great couple of trapeze artists named Hans and Edward, who were on target for repossession. “they were trapeze artists, good ones too, who regularly defied death by flying 50 feet above the midway floor.”

Repo the Genetic Opera: Blind Mag in her final performance flies high above the crowd on wires while she sings her final song “Chromaggia”.

THE BIG SET UP

Repo Men: In the final moments of the book it is revealed that Remy’s whole career as a repo man has been a set up. The artiforg heart was there just to string him along.

Repo the Genetic Opera: In the final moments of the film Rotti reveals that he set up Nathan Wallace, and it was actually Rotti who killed Marnie. The guilt was used against him to make him a repo man and string him along.

The finale to this report…

COVERING HIS ASS:

Assuming that the questions would arise of why his story so closely resembles the Repo the Genetic Opera, Eric Garcia’s 2009 novel Repossession Mambo (now released with it’s new title Repo Men) includes a 12 page account of where Garcia’s alleged Repo idea evolved from, called THE TAMING OF THE MAMBO (pg 316). The chapter is skewed as advice to an aspiring writer’s viewpoint; Garcia says “It should be interesting to anyone curious about the adaptation process and looking to make a career in writing…”  He tells tales of the film being green lit, the story evolving and basically covers his ass, so that he doesn’t get sued. Most would agree this is a (heavily doctored) admission of guilt just by being included in a paperback novel. I can’t think of any other novel who has added a “how-to make a movie” section at the back of their fictional novel. My guess is that Universal forced him to include this, to stop the Repo Opera fans from crying RIP-OFF.

This is not a case of two volcano movies or two asteroid movies, these similarities go so much deeper than the same theme of Body Part Repo Men. Adding insult to these comparisons is the clear copycat marketing campaign used by Repo Men.

I leave it up to you to decide.

Please comment everywhere and anywhere online.

Testify with this new Logo design from awesome and amazing artist Molly Rodman aka Zirofax on Deviant art! We are working on Merch with this design soon!

LO is one weird little film that you should really seek out

If you are sick of the typical genre fare that the big studios offer, or sick of the low quality that too many indie films offer, LO falls somewhere in-between as a weird as hell and completely unique film.

Lo The Demon arrives to DVD tomorrow, from director Travis Betz. You may know Travis from his work on the online comedy series The Receptionist, or The Baby Eaters. You may remember him as the director of another strange film called Joshua that was released in 2003. But make no mistake Betz is a driving force within the horror community.

Betz asked me to do some VFX on the film, so I stopped by the set in 2008 while they were filming and I walked into a weird ass tiny room with naked people writhing around behind a bloody sheet of fabric. Clearly this was going to be one of those weird art house films, and it is. However, instead of just wasting time with typical horror formats, LO takes place all in a weird dreamlike land that is shrouded in darkness and shadows. The film plays out as if you are watching a stage play, but doesn’t skimp when it comes to FX or plot. Basically Lo is a Demon love story, not really a horror film, and not just a love story, but a simple and clever fairytale like film with enough quirks and strangeness to satisfy even the hardened horror fan.

Here’s the catch…you want to look cool? Seek out this movie and show it to your friends. You are the one to find these oddball films that stick with you. Host a horror movie party and play LO and another weird film called INK. Your friends will thank you for it, and if you.

*** Depending on the person you are dating: LO is a perfect alternative to a shitty romantic comedy for Valentines Day. Stay in with your better half, make a nice dinner and settle down in front of the TV for some weird Demon romance!

Check out the trailer and see for yourself

Buy it at amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Lo-Jeremiah-Birkett/dp/B002VRNIZO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1265663192&sr=8-1
another review of LO here

http://www.roguecinema.com/article-category-3.html

REPO ARMY – FROZEN NEEDS YOU!This is a CALL TO ACTION!

My good friend Adam Green’s movie FROZEN opens in select markets (about 100 theaters) this coming Friday. FROZEN has been getting amazing reviews and similar to Repo; the film has very little advertising $$$ behind it. The movie took over Sundance (all shows sold out, people fainted, threw-up, cried, and ran for the door during certain scenes) the word of mouth and reviews couldn’t be stronger. Repo Army members will be interested to find out the numerous connections between the two films. (***Warning – Frozen does not have and organ harvesting or musical numbers) but check out the FROZEN – REPO connections!

Frozen Needs YOU!!

The new horror film Frozen is produced by Peter Block one of the true champions behind getting Repo the Genetic Opera made, (you can even see his name on a gravestone during “21^st Century Cure”!) As producer of Repo, the Saw films, and now Frozen; Block is one of the good guys in Hollywood who is always fighting to bring horror films and original ideas to production. After leaving Lionsgate Films, Block left to start his own company called A Bigger Boat Productions and Frozen is their first release.

I sat near Block in November at the Addicted 2 The Knife Repo shadowcast here in Los Angeles, and he was blown away by the fandom that Repo is still receiving.

Block says “I had such fun at the Repo performance.  I hadn’t seen the film in theaters for a year so I was excited just to be surrounded by fellow Repo fans, smelling popcorn and singing Infected.  But then I experienced the performance and it raised that feeling to a whole new level.  People love Repo so much that they are willing to don costumes, learn the lines and belt out the melodies. It made me proud to have been involved in something that gives such lasting pleasure.  I know it won’t be another whole year before I go again, and next time I may even wear my Genturn moo-moo!

Like Repo, FROZEN is original.  It’s not a retread or a sequel and it doesn’t look like something you saw last week.  We relied on guts and storytelling instead of CGI and spectacle to create a truly indie horror film.  Like Repo, we don’t have a lot of money available to support the release, but we know that if fans get out the first week, they can get their voices heard and we can add theaters and markets and try to compete with the big studio releases.  From Paris With Love will be around to battle Wolfman for weeks to come, but whether or not FROZEN is will depend on how we do the first week in LA, NYC, Boston, Chicago, Philly, Denver, Dallas, Minneapolis, SLC, and Toronto, so please come out and see the film that made audiences faint and puke @ Sundance, and tell all your friends to cross their frostbitten fingers that we can still be making original horror when all the audiences seem to want to see is the same ol’ thing.”

Adam Green and I have been great friends for years, even before he was making movies he and I would hang out at favorite bar The Rainbow on the Sunset Strip, back then he even tried his hand at stand up comedy (I saw him both kill and bomb on different nights!). While he was writing Frozen he decided to name the characters after his friends, and guess who he picked … ME!   Dan Walker!!! To my knowledge the character isn’t really like me very much (he doesn’t smoke cloves or drink Red Bull), but I was shocked and honored to find out that he used my name.

I spoke to Green about the Frozen – Repo connection: Green said “Before he lead the Repo Army, Spooky Dan was one of the top dogs in the Hatchet Army (still is) and really went to the mat trying to get the fans to support something original in a time where the only things getting theatrical shots were remakes.  While the average movie goer may not get it, the fact that Kevin Zegers’ character is actually named “Dan Walker” is a testament to what Spooky means to the horror community in my eyes.  It takes a hell of a lot to not only be working on a million of his own creative endeavors, but at the same time keeping that good non-competitive nature of wanting to see the culture thrive through each year’s contributions to the horror film genre.  The “not quite as hot” Elvira of our times, Spooky Dan is a symbol that the good nature of our culture is alive and well.

 It’s very easy to stay at home and wait for video or to shrug something new off without giving it a chance.  To get out there and support what you believe in takes a-whole-nother set of balls that many don’t have.  Keep an eye-out in FROZEN for an even more specific name drop to Spooky Dan.”

This is where the REPO ARMY comes in.  PLEASE if you live near one of the theaters, try and go see the movie Friday or Saturday and drag everyone you possibly can there with you.  Email your friends, gather your family, drag that weird guy from work, and help fill those seats.

Myself and some Repo Army (possibly Repo cast members as well) will be attending the 8:30 pm show in the Los Angeles on Friday night (drinks afterwards as well)

Green and the cast will be hitting the Mann Chinese 6 on Hollywood Blvd and doing Q&A’s after both the 7:30pm and 8:30pm shows.  

So when tickets go on sale later this week, try and get them while you can.  

The trailer and much more information can be found at www.Frozen-Film.com

Repo Addicted 2 The Knife promo poster, while wearing my Hatchet Army shirt!

Check out Adam’s plea for help on his MySpace blog!

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=3136694

External reviews:

http://www.dreadcentral.com/reviews/frozen-2010

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/reviewsnews.php?id=13925

http://www.fearnet.com/news/b18030_Sundance_2010___Frozen__Review.html?intcid=search_articles_Frozen

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43751

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/film/2474/review

Why do all the “Grammy” women on the front page of Yahoo look like dudes?

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/awards/23033/wacky-wondrous-fashion-wins-on-grammys-red-carpet/

I don’t get it.
Beyonce, Britney, and Lady Gaga are all hot (or at least they can be). So I don’t understand why the front page pictures of the three leading ladies of the Grammys look like Drag Queens. Take a look for your self. Lady Gaga has a shadow across her face that looks like she needs a shave. Beyonce, who almost always looks like she is ready for a Maxim Magazine Photo looks thick. While the white trash look that Britney normally rocks is clearly here on display, she just looks weird.

I am not saying that in real life or on TV that they didn’t all look fine, I just wonder how www.yahoo.com one of the biggest corporations on the planet could only have picked
(or afforded) these particular 3 shots of woman, who we know look better than these photos represent, for the front page. Maybe it’s a reflection of how far down the Grammy’s have gone in Prestige? Maybe it’s a secret ad campaign for the New RuPaul TV show? Maybe I am just crazy and these pics are fine.

What is your theory?

SD

Tonight at the bar, my friend Glenda Rolle (the incredible artist whose work can be seen at www.glendarolle.com ) was talking about how much she loved Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead and Slither. She really likes her zombies but hasn’t seen that many zombie films. Being surrounded by 25 horror directors, journalists, and writers, everyone had an opinion of what ones were the most important. Eventually we started to write down the most important zombie flicks to help educate her poor inexperienced soul.

The actual notes from the night!

Knowing that she liked three zombie films that are heavy on the comedy side certainly helped skew the conversation, and as it turns out she had seen most of the Romero flicks, and the Remake, Both 28 Days & Weeks. We suggested books and movies alike. But I want to know what you think are the two most important zombie films for her (or someone like her) to watch.

Here are the ones that were mentioned tonight:
1. Return of the Living Dead part 1 and 3

2. Dead Alive aka Brain Dead

3. Dead and Buried

4. Night of the Creeps

5. Cemetery Man aka Dellamorte Dellamore

6. Dead Girl

7. Right at Your Door

8. Tombs of the Blind Dead

9. Dead Heat

10. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie aka The Living Dead of Manchester Morgue

Honorable Mentions:
Zombie Strippers
Fido
Dead Snow
Night of the Comet
Day of the Dead Contagium (just kidding)

I saw the Directors cut of Repo! The Genetic Opera

Hey Creeps
I have to say that my head is going to explode at everything I saw tonight!
Monday was Darren Bousman’s Birthday, so after a nice Mexican dinner with his lovely wife Laura, Joe Bishara, Brian Collins from www.horrormovieaday.com and VFX supervisor (my girl) Tammy Sutton – Walker, all talked about the future of Repo. DLB asked about certain fans, told us stories about his last meeting with Terrance and we worked out some preliminary plans for what is to come for Repo Fans. (He also promised to take me to Toronto if Joe Bishara went with us!) Then we all headed back to DLB’s house to check out some Repo! stuff that I had never seen.

We started out with an incredible and amazing montage of behind the scenes footage that Laura shot and edited. The entire cast and crew singing along with “Night Surgeon” and a few other songs, Alexa hiding her skittles from DLB, Terrance in full Graverobber costume running around, and so much more. It was incredible to see the on set footage with everyone in costume and being silly. Then Laura (against Darren’s wishes) showed me a few minutes of rehearsal footage of the cast out of costume doing there parts. Ogre (wearing no mask) was just in Jeans and a T-shirt rehearsing “Bravi”.

From there DLB brought me into the office where he pulled out all the different copies of the script, the storyboarded version of the ENTIRE film, the sales booklet that they printed up to get investors interested, CD’s of early music, flyers, and even some stage show promotional materials. When I started freaking out about that, he showed me his secret collection of early concept art created by Terrance for all the different characters. By now most of you have seen how the looks of the cast started and changed over time, but this was an exhaustive mix of side characters and alternate costume designs. At this point Laura came in and said that DLB needed to stop because he was going to give me a “Spooky-gasm”. But of course Darren was a little buzzed after 3 margaritas at dinner so he and his dog Chance ran to his screening room where he had a stash of more stuff, which “no one has ever seen!”

After he climbed up to his secret stash (which had other stuff like The Poughkeepsie Tapes, some dirty movies) Darren showed me the extended and UNCUT version of the trailer that was aired on Spike TV during The Scream awards in 07. He found about 4 different early cuts of the film and proceeded to show me bits of them, then he found the HOLY GRAIL. The first cut, marked 11-10-2007! The film was unfinished, with temp tracks and unfinished VFX. We watched the first 10 minutes or so, and then he scanned around the disk to find new stuff I had never seen. This version of the film had so many scenes in different order, the movie started in Shilo’s bedroom, early comic panels were in place, and then A longer version of “Gold”, and uncut “Rotti’s Chapel Sermon” the extended Opera scene, “Rotti’s Interrogation Room Challenge” with loads of extra footage, and the thing I was dying to see, the legendary Repo fight where the Hench Girls and other Repomen fight Repoman in the Night Surgeon set!

Seriously you guys, this is some amazing stuff, like a longer …way longer version of “Come Up and Try My New Parts” and extra lines, which are (of course) sung. But if I had to say the one thing that stood out from the rest was the Sarah Brightman song where she was dressed in this barely there leather outfit singing and preparing for her final song at the opera. In this version she clearly knew what she was going to do to her eyes long before she started singing “Cromaggia”

There is so much more Repo stuff that us fans have not seen, even the alternate takes, and holding on the longer shots was making me crazy. Laura was just laughing at me the whole time because I couldn’t hide my excitement in seeing this stuff. I begged and pleaded with Darren to let me take the long version of the film and show it to the fans so they can have a “spooky-gasm” like I did tonight! Darren sent me home with a bunch of goodies, now I feel bad that I didn’t get him a gift…since it was HIS birthday.

(BTW – Tammy was filming the entire thing on DLB’s camera, so start bugging him to give me the footage so I can show you some of it!)

Your best-est friend in the whole world
SpookyDan

The latest music video for Depeche Mode’s “Fragile Tension’ is amazing and insane. A blend of abstract and strange visuals mixed with concert footage that is really blowing my mind. It turns out that they did the whole thing with a computer generated particle system that was custom tweaked for the video. I have worked a bit with particle systems in the past doing some of my own artwork and it produces some cool effects, but its super time consuming as well.  You can read about how The guys at The Found Collective did it at:

Tonight at Repo in Sacramento, CA I saw the first ever Flying rig to put Blind Mag in the air!!
stunning and spectacular!! Great work by Ambers Sweets. I cant wait to see what they have up their sleeves for February