There are some people who call Repo! The Genetic Opera “The new Rocky Horror Picture Show.” I say GOOD! This film is much better. Repo! The Genetic Opera is the fourth directorial outing by Darren Lynn Bousman. Bousman is best known for directing Saw II, III, and IV. Repo! couldn’t be further away from the Saw films in every possible way. I was greatly impressed by the film’s ambition. I do feel the storytelling was a little lacking at times but awesome visuals and fun music made up for it.

For starters, Repo is a musical. It takes place in nightmarish future where organ failure is at an all time high. An evil corporation called Geneco offers financing for organ transplant surgeries. The story centers around Shilo, played by Alexa Vega, who is the daughter of the repoman that comes to collect the organs when people can no longer make their payments. The Repoman is played by Anthony Head. Head delivers a solid performance. We really get to see his range in this film. In particular, there is one scene where he is repossesing a spine while talking on his holographic wrist phone with Shilo, reminding her of the importance of taking her medication. Here you have Head’s brutality as the repoman and his warmth as Shilo’s dad. Great acting by Head, great directing by Bousman.

Speaking of great acting, Paris Hilton is in this film. She plays Amber Sweet, the surgery addicted sister rounding out the tryfecta of evil children who belong to the head of the evil Genco. The other two siblings are played by Bill Mosely and Ogre from Skinny Puppy. Paris has clearly come a long way since her appearance in House of Wax. She fit very well into this operatic roll which lent itself to over acting. This is really what she should be looking to do more of. Another great fit was Bill Mosely. He was able to channel his Chop Top over acting into a new type of roll for him that worked really well. Ogre was under a lot of make up. It was hard for me to get a real sense of his acting ability. He seemed to be handling his slightly gay character pretty well. All three of these guys had a great chemistry together which I was not expecting.

Great performances aside one of the films strongest points are the sets and the costumes. My personal favorite costume was the Repoman’s. His mask with light up eyes was perfectly toped off with a head mirror. (that is what that reflective disk doctors used to wear on their heads is called). It was very Brazil type mix of future and past. It’s something that is lacking in recent nightmarish future films. My favorite set was definitely the graveyard where Shilo meets the Graverobber/drug dealer played by Terrance Zdunich. This set was another great combination of old and new with gothic type head stones surrounded by security cameras and signs that read, “Grave robbers will be executed on site.” There was a great sequence on this set where Shilo and Graverobber break through a wall will trying to escape some cemetary guards and end up in a subterranean room filled with corpses. You really get the feel that your in the future where there is a bubonic type plague happening.

Repo!’s strongest point has got to be the music. Terrance Zdunich not only played Graverobber but was also the composers and one of screenwriters. The music was absolutely awesome. My favorite song was Seventeen which Shilo sings as she is yelling at her father. While I was rocking out to this song, I thought, ” this song has a very “Bad Reputation” vibe to it”. Then Joan Jett appeared for a cameo playing guitar in Shilo’s bed room. Jett nods at Shilo almost to give her permission to rock out. I’d really like to know if she played guitar on the song.

My only problem with the film was it became incredibly convoluted in true operatic fashion. There was a story where The evil head of Genco loved Shilo’s mother but she married the Repoman so he killed her. Now he wanted Shilo to sing in his opera or something. There was a thing with Shilo’s Godmother who has special hologram eyes and he wanted the Repoman to reposes them. Story wise they lost me towards the end there. But all and all Repo! The Genetic Opera is way better than The Rocky Horror Picture Show and I hope it ultimately gets the cult following Rocky Horror has.

I don’t know why I like it. I guess I just do. I love professional wrestling. So I really love meeting professional wrestlers. My favorite happens to be the one who the Bad Kids root for, the sixteen time Heavyweight Champion of the world, Nature Boy Rick Flair. This guy made a career of sleeping with groupies and staying up all night drinking. He is truly a bad kid. My good friend Victor who is currently working for World Wrestling Entertainment was kind enough to invite me to the Ringsidefest wrestling convention in Times Square the day after Halloween. Victor was able to procure a pair of VIP passes.

I was up at 9:00AM and way hung over but I knew Flair probably hadn’t gone to sleep yet. If I was going to be one of the Horseman I had to tough it out. I made it over to Caroline’s on Broadway between 49th and 50th which was way classier than a gym or a Knights of Columbus, where they usually hold wrestling conventions. I met up with Vic and they gave us our passes. While we were waiting they put on Starcade 93 headlined by Ric Flair vs Vader for the WCW Heavyweight title.

Then we watched classic Flair promos from new WWE Flair DVD. In the middle of a promo Flair’s manager got on the mic and said Ric was ready to come out. The people in the audience begged him to let the promo end before they brought Ric out. When the promo concludes Ric comes out to his music. The entire audience is on their feet bowing to Flair. He in turns bows back to everyone. When the applause dies down Ric thanks everyone for coming and lets out a couple signature “wooo’s.” When I got to meet him he signed the wonderful photo I purchased from the merchandise table. I told him he was the greatest of all time and he shook my hand. He even flashed the Horseman sign when we posed for a photo. This made me the happiest boy in the world.

Now it was time for the Q&A. Sometimes these can be lame with wrestlers because they try to pretend that wrestling is real which is retarded. There would be none of that from Ric. He took everyone’s questions very seriously. My favorite question was about the “new generation” of up and coming talent. Ric was saying how he sees a great deal of potential in his younger son and he has taken a person interest in training him. He added that Ricky Steamboat was also training his own son. Maybe we’ll get Flair Steamboat version 2 down the road. At one point Ric was warned that time was running out “Don’t worry I’m going to answer all the questions.” Ric is a true class act. I will definitely come back to Ringsidefest next year. Since that is one year away I encourage everyone to go to their website and buy wrestling toys from them.

http://www.ringsidecollectibles.com

Hey everyone! Over 1,000,000 people watched PG Porn, James Gunn’s new web series on Spike.com. It is really great! Unfortunately it IS rated PG. Well us Bad Kids like out Porn XXX rated. So here is a link to a clip of PG Porn star Belladonna getting double fisted by Humanzee star Jenna Haze.

http://www.fucd.com/index.php?link=1623

Enjoy Bad Kids! Enjoy!

Hey everyone! There is going to be an America’s Bad Kids Cottonmouth.tv Halloween Special! It will be appearing on Cottonmouth.tv. Cottonmouth is a short story by Steve Bissette that appeared in an a comic book horror anthology series called Gore Shriek. Independent director Christopher P. Garetano, is going to be bringing us a live action adaptation of that story you can watch on Cottonmouth.tv this Halloween Eve at Midnight! The WITCHING HOUR! I worked on the film and from what I have seen so far, it is absolutely awesome. Check out the trailer for Cottonmouth right here.

The America’s Bad Kids Cottonmouth.tv Halloween Special is an interview with 30 Days of Night Creator Steve Niles and horror artist DW Frydendall. The three of us hung out at the Hyeana Gallery in Burbank, California to rap about our favorite horror comic books.

During the discussion Steve Bissette came up. To make this episode I went digging though my comic collection because I wanted to include as much comic art as possible. During the search I came across all my Swamp Thing comics. I had to include Swamp Thing because that is one of characters Bissette is famous for drawing in the 1980’s. At the time Watchman creator Alan Moore was writing Swamp Thing and really took old Swampy in some really cool directions. This was the first time we got to see Swamp Thing as a force of nature. He is not a human who’s body the swamp got stuck to, rather his consciousness was absorbed into swamp. He represented the Green or plant life on earth. We even saw the first appearance of John Constantine during this run. Steve Bissette and John Totleben were the two main artists during this time. This is my favorite of their covers. I love the way the stripes bleed out at the bottom.

In conclusion, Swamp Thing Rules! And don’t forget to check out Cottonmouth.tv this Halloween Eve!

1937-2008

We here at America’s Bad Kids were greatly saddened to learn about the passing of bad kid Blacksploitation star, Rudy Ray Moore. I remember the first time I saw Rudy. It was in the movie The Great White Hype. Damon Waynes was getting ready for a boxing match with Peter Berg. So he was watching Dolemite to get himself psyched up. My personal favorite of the Dolemite films is the second one, The Human Tornado. It has a sound track so simply must check out. Well Rudy, us Honky Motha Fuckas will never forget you.

Johnny Hotbody is a little boy from Malverne New York. Ever since he could remember he enjoyed getting a rise out of his mother by doing bad things. As time went on it became increasingly difficult for him to make his mother upset time after time. At this realization Johnny hit the road. He was determined to find other bad kids through this great country to find new ways to make his mom and moms everywhere really mad.