Repo Man

The Repo Man is in charge of reposessing organ transplants after the transplantee fails to pay their GeneCo bill for 90 days. He is also Shilo's father, a surgeon named Nathan Wallace. Shilo's mother Marni became sick during her pregnancy and Nathan did his best to find a cure, but Marnie ended up dying after her medicine was secretly sabotaged by Rotti Largo. Rotti convinced Nathan that it was his fault but promised to keep it between them if Nathan would use his skills as a surgeon to reposess GeneCo organs.

Shilo Wallace

Shilo Wallace is the only daughter of Nathan and Marni Wallace. Believing she is sick with the same blood disease her mother had, she goes along with her father's treatment by taking his medicine, wearing a wristband that monitors her blood pressure, and staying isolated indoors. She occasionally puts on a gas mask and goes out to her mother's tomb to feel closer to her and to check out bugs. The medicine she takes causes her hair to fall out, so she wears a wig with long black hair. One fateful night while she was sneaking out to the tomb, she runs into the Graverobber and quickly learns that there is a lot about the outside world that she doesn't know about. She starts to rebel against her father and ends up meeting Blind Mag as well as Rotti Largo, who decides to make her his heir rather than one of his ungrateful children. The more Shilo starts to learn, the more things start to unravel for Nathan, who genuinely loves her and has tried to keep her safe from the harsh realities of the world.

Blind Mag

Magdelene Defoe, stage name "Blind Mag", is the voice of GeneCo as well as Shilo's godmother. She was born blind, but Rotti Largo saw an opportunity and created a contract in which she could get eye surgery in exchange for her singing. She could now see perfectly as well as project images with her eyes, but the contract had a catch: if Mag chose to stop singing for GeneCo, her eyes would be reposessed.

Graverobber

The Graverobber's real name is not known, nor are his exact motivations. A true chaotic neutral, he narrates the story of GeneCo and the post-apocalyptic world as well as the details of the feud between Rotti and Nathan from a seemingly omnipotent viewpoint. What is known about him is that he sells street zydrate, which he procures from dead bodies, and that he has a sexual and business relationship with Amber Sweet, who can't go without zydrate. He seems to know all of the main characters' secrets, which helps Shilo to unravel the truth about everything. At the end of the film, he essentially warns viewers that it's stupid to hold grudges because we all end up in the ground anyway.

Marni Wallace

Marni Wallace is Nathan's late wife and Shilo's mother. She is deceased during the film but still plays a major role in the motivations of Nathan, Rotti, and Shilo. Shilo wears her cameo necklace throughout the entire film. Marni had been engaged to wed Rotti, but having falled in love with Nathan, she left Rotti at the altar and shortly married Nathan instead. She was also Mag's best friend and was involved in Rotti helping her to get eye surgery. Marni declared Mag as Shilo's godmother before ultimately dying during childbirth from Rotti's secret poison, unbeknownst to Nathan, who blamed himself for her death.

You know you want it, baby, GeneCo's got it!

Repo! The Genetic Opera is a 2008 horror/sci-fi rock opera directed by Darren Lynnn Bousman (mainly known for his directorial work on the SAW film series) and written by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich. Despite disappointing reviews and box office numbers, the film has gained cult classic status and many people love it for its campy, bloody, unique vision.

Go watch it for free here if you haven't already!!

The film takes place in a not-so-distant future in which the world has been ravaged by an epidemic of organ failures. GeneCo, a giant corporation, offers organ transplants on a payment plan. The catch? If you fail to pay up, a Repo Man will come to cut the organ out and return it to the company. Repo follows Shilo, a girl who has remained isolated in her victorian gothic home for her entire life due to a mysterious blood disease, genetically passed on from her late mother Marni, that her father gives her medicine for. As she turns 17, she starts to sneak out of the house and rebel against her father, Nathan. Little does she know, Nathan secretly works as a Repo Man for Rotti Largo, the founder and president of GeneCo. When Rotti learns that he is terminally ill, he realizes that none of his three children are fit to take over the company and instead sets his sights on Shilo... It all ends with a "bang!" at the Genetic Opera, hosted, of course, by GeneCo.

For character descriptons, hover over their pictures on each sidebar.

Details & Main Cast

Film Rating: R (language, gore, drug use, sexual content, & strong bloody violence)
Run Time: 98 minutes

Alexa Vega as Shilo Wallace

Anthony Stewart Head as Nathan Wallace/The Repo Man

Paul Sorvino (Rest in Peace)
as Rotti Largo

Sarah Brightman as Blind Mag

Terrance Zdunich as The Graverobber

Paris Hiton as Amber Sweet

Bill Moseley as Luigi Largo

Nivek Ogre as Pavi Largo

Sarah Power as Marni Wallace

Fun Facts!

Joan Jett makes an appearance during the song "Seventeen" as the band's guitarist.

Because of it's cult following similar to Rocky Horror Picture Show, many theatres also put on shadowcast performaces of Repo! (with plenty of fake blood, of course).

When the film came out, many of the main characters had profiles on Myspace. They were considered "official", since the Repo! website directly linked to these pages. It can be debated, though, as to whether all of the info on the pages are cannon, considering there are a few inconsistencies and the pages were not run by Darren Smith or Terrance Zdunich.

According to Pavi's page, he is bisexual!! I also think it's funny that one of his favorite books is 120 Days of Sodom.

I was also able to find Amber Sweet's page, which really solidifies how vapid she is. Her brothers also left some pretty funny comments on there:

The idea for Repo was originally conceived in 1996 by Darren Smith, who was inspired to write a distopian story after one of his friends went into bankrupcy and his things were being repossessed.

Some people have claimed that this film plagiarized another film called Repo Men because they share the same premise, but Repo Men was based on a book published in 2009 and came out in 2010, two years after Repo! The Genetic Opera. Plus, as just outlined, Darren Smith got the idea back in 1996.

Repo! was originally titled The Necromerchant's Debt and was first performed as a stage play in 2002 at the John Raitt theatre. The characters and plot underwent a lot of changes before the film was eventually picked up by Lionsgate.

Despite several members of the cast and crew expressing interest in creating a sequel (the film was conceptualized as a trilogy), lack of funding and other problems made it impossible. Instead, Bousman and Zdunich collaborated on The Devil's Carnival, a 2012 horror musical starring several of the cast members from Repo! In 2016, they also created the sequel: Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival.

Rotti Largo

Rottissimo "Rotti" Largo is the founder and president of GeneCo, the company responsible for "saving the world" from being decimated by organ failures. He is highly respected with almost god-like reverence by the general public, but behind closed doors he is extremely manipulative, opportunistic, and verbally abusive toward his 3 children (whose mother is unknown). It is alluded that he may have been a much different person before Marni, his fiance, left him to marry Nathan Wallace instead and became pregnant with Shilo. In a jealous outrage, he sent his Genterns to poison Marni's medicine and framed Nathan as her "accidental" killer so that he could later be manipulated into doing Rotti's bidding. He views all of his children as failures but seems to have a soft spot for Amber, whom he spoils with frequent plastic surgeries.

Pavi Largo

Paviche "Pavi" Largo is Rotti's youngest son and, of course, hopes to inherit GeneCo. His face is extremely scarred/disfigured for unknown reasons, so he wears a skin mask (typically feminine) that can be detached from hooks on the edges of his face and switched out. He speaks in an exaggerated Italian accent and is narcissistic, flamboyant, and sex-obsessed. He carries around a hand mirror to look at himself and is followed by an entourage of Genterns that help him fulfill his perverse desires. At the end of the film, although he does not inherit GeneCo, he is delighted to win an auction for and now wears the face that fell off of Amber during her opera performance due to a botched surgery.

Amber Sweet

Amber Sweet, originally named Carmela Largo, is Rotti's only daughter and youngest child; naturally, she is spoiled rotten and believes she deserves to inherit GeneCo. Despite being the face of the Zydrate Support Network, Amber is addicted to plastic surgery and takes street zydrate to "help with the agony". She obtains zydrate from the Graverobber, often using sex as a form of payment. Because she's "addicted to the knife", her physical appearance changes frequently and her wig and clothing style along with it. She desperately wants to become a famous singer, but is not as talented as the famous Blind Mag, and thus is constantly overshadowed. At the end of the film, when father dies from his terminal illness, we find out she is ultimately the one to take over the company - meaning it will likely fall into ruin.

Luigi Largo

Luigi Largo is Rotti's eldest son and, like his two siblings, wants to inherit and run GeneCo. He is easily angered and extremely aggressive, going as far as to stab someone for giving him bad-tasting coffee. In his own words, "I'm the smartest, and the toughest! I will find a hole and fuck it! If there ain't one, I will make one! Luigi don't take shit from no one." He always carries a knife with him and seems to delight in torture and gore. At the end of the film, he seems to accept that Amber is the new president of GeneCo and cheers her on, threatening the reporters and bystanders until they applaud her as well.

The Genterns

The Genterns are nurses, all traditionally attractive, who work at GeneCo and are a big part of their branding. They seem to assist in almost every avenue of the business but are mainly advertised to prescribe and administer zydrate before surgeries. They always wear white (usually a minidress or something more revealing) and the signature red eye shields and have long hair. The Largo family treat them like slaves; they have to deal with frequent verbal abuse from Luigi and keep up with Pavi's sexual needs as well as do their jobs.