by Joseph McCabe

Last week we took the ol' FEARjet up to Toronto to catch a special screening of director Darren Lynn Bousman's upcoming film adaptation of Repo! The Genetic Opera--the goth musical stage play about a futuristic society in which human organ failure is widespread, as are organ repossessions! (Check out our review of Repo! The Genetic Opera.) After the screening, we had an oppotunity to chat with Bousman himself, in his editing room at Toronto's Deluxe Postproduction Studios. The filmmaker was generously talkative, considering that his final sound mix for Repo! was due the following Monday afternoon--a mere three days after we spoke!

[Note: We've been covering Repo! for quite some time here at FEARnet--in fact, during the film's production, we even did these exclusive video interviews with Darren Lynn Bousman and Paris Hilton, in which the two discussed their hotly anticipated rock opera.]

How did you decide on the level of gore in this film? As with your Saw films, there?s quite a bit. But since it?s a musical, were you concerned about how fans of that genre would react?

Well, I think on this one? With Saw you go in knowing the fans love the gore. And you give them that aplenty. With this it wasn?t that, it was more what the story dictated. We never went in trying to gross people out. I myself wouldn?t call this a horror film--I know many people are referring to it as a horror film. There are horror elements, but horror to me is something horrific. And there?s really nothing horrific about this film. There?s violence, there?s death, there?s dismemberment, but I think we just did what the story dictated. The story?s about repossessions. Repossessions are bloody, so where there needed to be repossessions we did that. But we didn?t go in trying to gross people out. That was never the intention. With the Saw films we did. We went in saying, ?What?s gonna disgust people??

In fact, I wanted to stray so far away from Saw that I refused to use the same kind of camera. I would not use the same type of lenses. I tried to break away from Saw as much as humanly possible.

Even though you don?t consider this a horror film, one could argue it falls within the tradition of the horror musical.

You mean how it?s classified?

Yes.

I don?t envy anyone who?s got to try to market this movie, because I don?t know how you classify it. If anything I would call it sci-fi, a sci-fi fantasy, a sci-fi musical. The thing that scares me about that is when you say ?sci-fi musical??there was a sci-fi musical that was absolutely horrible that I saw. Hopefully they?ll make a new classification for a movie like this. I hope they do. Because if we?re successful in what we?re trying to do, and people do go see this movie, I hope it inspires other people to make movies in this kind of genre. Because I know there are other people out there like me that like this type of movie.

Can you comment on the strategy that?s being employed right now to market the film?

My strategy is grass roots. I was in Florida when the whole Blair Witch thing went through. That?s where they filmed it, so I saw it months before it became a big deal. Months. I saw it at the very first screening I think they ever did, at this little place in Orlando, Florida. That was before all the hype went around. And I saw how the hype built. The hype built with a very grass-roots campaign. It built on the internet. They did stunt tactics, by leaving videotapes in different places, and people would pick up the videotape and think they were real. And they used the internet to make people think everything they were seeing was real. It was amazing because that had never been done before. They didn?t resort to traditional things like billboards and posters and trailers. That wasn?t what they did with Blair Witch. Because Blair Witch was a new type of movie. There were other versions of movies like Blair Witch out before. But to try to bring that to the mainstream audience?people hadn?t seen anything like that before. It was a fake movie, but it was kind of a documentary. You didn?t know what it was so you had to think outside the box in marketing the movie. The same thing has to be done with this. You can?t think inside the box. You can?t just put a trailer out there and think that people are gonna go see this movie. Because they?re not. I think you have to do stunts, crazy things. This movie is very crazy. So I would do ridiculous things to get it into the press. I would do things that a lot of films would be scared to do, or would be considered taboo.

It seems like Repo! warrants almost anything. Can you say what the current status of the film?s release is?

Honestly, I have no idea. It changes everyday. The movie turned out to be a lot more complicated than anyone thought, myself included. We have so many visual effects in this movie. I think we?re going upwards of 350 to 400 visual effects shots. To put it in perspective, any of the Saw films had ten, fifteen. So I kind of jumped in on this little movie, that was supposed to be a little musical, and it turned into a massive special-effects movie, with visual effects and CGI creatures and little bugs and CGI backdrops. That took a long time. We also mixed an entire album of fifty-seven songs. Which actually, if you want to think about it, it?s like three to four albums. Because a normal album has twelve to fifteen songs on it, and we have fifty-seven. So all that was done within this little period of time, and it pushed everything back. I was supposed to turn a cut in three months ago, and I?m just now getting to the point where?I think we?re about three months behind in where we?re supposed to be.

Just the amount of work that went into this movie, the mixing of the album, all the visual effects, all of this just took a lot longer than we expected. That being said, what?s the status of the movie? Where?s it gonna be? I don?t know. I think that my goal is to keep doing what I do; and that?s to keep telling people about the movie. It?s Lionsgate?s job to figure out how they?re gonna market it and get it out there. My job is, as the film?s biggest fan and supporter...anyone that?ll listen, I want to talk to about it.

Do you think you'll go to this year's San Diego Comic-Con with Repo?

Yeah, I hope to. I think that Comic-Con?s a great place for this. I don?t think this movie is ever gonna?at least to start with?hit the mainstream people. It?s funny?someone made an observation and said, ?There are two ways to market a movie: you go after everybody--you go after the football players and the cheerleaders and the secretaries and the moms and the guys with the nine-to-fives?or not.? I think it?s ?or not? with this one. Those kinds of people, while I hope they?ll like this movie, I don?t think they?re our target demographic. It?s the fringe. It?s the people who don?t really fit in a classification. It?s the geeks. I mean, I was the biggest high-school geek in the entire world, I was the theater thing. I think what made Rocky Horror Picture Show so popular was that it embraced that it was okay to be different. It showed people you can dress up like a transvestite, you can wear makeup, and it?s okay. You can be weird. I think that?s more along the lines of what Repo! is. Because it?s the bastard movie that should never have been made. Someone said that in a review, and I like that. This is the bastard child of the studio. It should never have been made. It should never be there. But it is. I think that?s the kind of people that we have to go after. The people that don?t fit in the classification, that like to embrace that being different?s okay. I think that there?s a lot of those people out there. I?m one of those people. Those are the people I want to see this movie.

What presented the greatest challenge for you in adapting the stage play?

It was like a whole different beast. It?s like the difference between riding a tricycle and riding a Ferrari. They?re both things that can get you from A to B, but? The stage play was very minimalistic. It?s still fun to look at. There?s some clips of it on Youtube?I think there?s still three or four clips of it there. It was so minimalistic. The whole auditorium was no bigger than this room. It was ridiculous. But there was something unique and interesting about it, because, again, you knew you were seeing something different. I think that?s what people kept coming back to see. It was not a normal play. It was like??We have blood, we have organs, and we have hot, half-naked girls dancing around.? It was a party. That?s what made Repo fun?it was a party. I go to a lot of stage shows and fall asleep, and that?s not this. You do not fall asleep when you see this.

The stage show also didn?t have the comic-book style interludes that the film offers, providing backstory on each of the characters. How did that evolve?

It was in the script. It was in the first short film that I did. I used it originally in the short film to explain all the stuff that I couldn?t show them in the short film. I was taking the short film to pitch to producers, and because I knew there were so many questions they were gonna ask??Why did this happen??--I made this five-minute comic-book intro that explained everything, so they wouldn?t have to ask the questions. [Co-writer] Terrance [Zdunich] drew it, and it was great. It helped. It really helped. Then we started talking about doing the movie, and we knew we were gonna have budgetary restrictions, and we knew we weren?t gonna be able to do certain things. So instead of trying to do it with no money, we said, ?Let?s embrace that we don?t have any money, and let?s do these comic-book things and make it part of the movie.? It was always our intention that the movie look very comic-booky, very unreal. I think that it really fits the movie. It looks good.

What?s the length of the current, final cut?

The cut that you saw, I think, was about ninety-two, and we?re at about eighty-five right now. If this ever lives on, and this movie becomes what I hope it will be?and I hope that I can release the extreme extended cut. Because the movie was much different. Much, much different in the original cut that I did. That being said, the movie now is much better.

How long was the original cut?

The original cut was right at two hours. But it was different. The scenes were different, in complete order, characters appear differently. But this cut is a much better cut than that. This was the first time that I could ever see?when I do a Saw film, you can read the movie, you know how it?s gonna be. You know the actors, you know Tobin Bell, you know how it?s gonna read on a page. With this, I think there were like sixty-five songs originally, and we cut it down from there. And you don?t know how it?s gonna play when you?re actually watching it. It gives you a headache, it really gives you a headache. When I watched it, I was like, ?There?s so much to process, there?s so many colors, so many sounds.? Then we started just trimming stuff out, we started cutting stories out that really didn?t make a difference in the movie. And we turned out this leaner version of it. But that being said, I think for fans of the movie? I mean, I?ll go back and watch Jesus Christ Superstar a hundred times. Rocky Horror Picture Show a hundred times. When Pulp Fiction came out, I wanted to watch the commentary and see what I missed. Movies that I love, I want to go back to and see every other single scene that was supposed to be there, that could have been there. We have an abundance of those. We have a ton of stuff that we shot that wasn?t in the movie; which was also, I think, very cool. When the DVD comes out, I hope they can include a lot of that stuff.

How long do you envision the DVD director?s cut will run?

Probably right at two hours. I mean, a little under two hours, but it?s a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff. Some great songs. Some of my favorite songs were cut. But, you know, they say that a lot of directors' favorite scenes always get cut, and that?s for the betterment of the movie. Just because I think they?re great doesn?t mean everyone else does.

Apparently there will be some special web animation launching soon that will tie into the film. What will that involve?

Repo?s a big movie, and I don?t mean ?big? on the scale of how much money we have, our plans for it are big. We conceived of it as a three-part thing, and we told what we considered to be the most accessible part of the story right now. The easiest thing for us, at this stage, is to do the middle part, and there is a preface to the middle part. I think telling the preface in comic-book form... We use comic books throughout the movie as a car that takes you from place to place. It fills in gaps. I would love to do a series of short animation to set up the world of Repo!. It?s a lot to bite off when you come in to see the movie. There?s so much coming at you. Everyone?s singing, you have all these different characters, all these different scenarios that are being played out. It could be a hard thing to keep together if you don?t know what you?re supposed to be listening to or looking at. I think that I can ease that by these comic-book things, that say, ?Here?s the world of Geneco. Here are Grave Robbers, here?s what they do. Here is Zytrate. Here is Shilo Wallace." So by the time you go in to see the movie, you have a backstory on all these characters and you can enjoy the movie without trying to piece things together.

It would be a web thing. We?re gonna be launching a web page, www.repo-opera.com, in about a week, which we?ll be updating with stuff. Then we?re gonna leak things, whether it be webisodes, or things like that, or find a different site to put them up on. But I think that it?s important?I think the more that people know about the movie going into it, the more they?re gonna enjoy it.

Are you considering any special comic-book tie-in?

Yeah. Terrance, who?s in the movie?he plays Grave Robber?is an amazing artist. Our ultimate goal would be a graphic novel. I think Repo!?s the perfect world for a graphic novel. I think that?s something else we?d love to do.

And you?ll finish your final cut this Monday, March 31st?

That?s it. At that point I leave Toronto. Then I go back to Los Angeles, then I go do Fear Itself. Now it?s up to the websites and it?s up to the reviewers and it?s up to the marketing team. So hopefully everyone will see it.

Okay, here's our trademark question... In real life, what?s your greatest fear?

Abandonment is a big one. I could never imagine waking up and being alone. Not ?alone? like ?no one?s in my apartment with me,? I mean that I am the only one left. It terrifies me. Like when you watch the old episode of Twilight Zone where the guy wakes up and everyone?s dead. Or you see movies like I Am Legend. That really terrifies me, because I like to communicate with people, and I like to be surrounded by people at all times. So I think the thought of being abandoned, or being by myself?which leads to the next part?claustrophobia. I think claustrophobia is my biggest fear. I can handle small spaces. I?m fine with that. But I can?t handle them for long. When friends joke and lock me in closets, I start crying like a baby. So yeah, it?s part of the same thing. Again, the ultimate fear is waking up in a box somewhere, with no one else around. We had a bit like that in Saw IV that got cut out of the movie, and didn?t even make the director?s cut or the deleted scenes. But there was a scene where a guy was trapped in a glass box. That to me is a terrifying thing.

Thank you very much, Darren.

My pleasure. Thank you.

Note: Be sure to check back later this week for our exclusive interview with the actor who plays Grave Robber--Repo! co-writer Terrance Zdunich, whom we also met on our trip to Toronto. And we'll have some exclusive Repo! images for you!