Not Buffy, but still the Gothic's Affect on Modern Cinema

If you haven’t seen Repo! The Genetic Opera I would highly recommend that you watch it. Not only is it a fantastic movie (directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, he also directed all the Saw films), but it is also a great example of how the Gothic tradition affects modern cinema. I have seen it before, but in re-watching it this weekend, I remembered that it has many of the same parallels with Gothic literature as Buffy does. To go over some of these similarities briefly, it directly refers to itself as a “Gothic opera” in one of the songs, so in case the viewer didn’t pick up on the hints, they are told the genre of the film. Also, the setting is extremely Gothic, from the dark and mysterious sky, to the graveyards and death, to the Victorian era buildings and clothing. The suspension of belief comes in with the setting as well, since it is set in the future at a time when there has been a huge organ failure epidemic and there is only one company that will sell organs for transplantation, Gene Co. The plot is based on this young girl who is searching for a way to cure her blood disease, but also to escape the tyranny of her father. Her mother is dead, so she has no proper guardian, much like many of the Gothic tales, therefore, puts herself into many dangerous situations. The presence of a narrator is also important, because it is one of the important aspects of a Gothic story and one that Buffy directly alludes to in “Storyteller”. The voice of the narrator is very important in all of the books that we have read so far and something that we have discussed in relation to every single one because the voice of the narrator is very strong and greatly affects information that the reader is given in a visible way. Finally, the setting of the movie is based on fears and problems of contemporary society, mainly death. The idea that an epidemic of organ failure has affected our society isn’t without reason, as is the problem of where to find enough organs (a problem even without an epidemic), and how someone pays for an organ transplant. These fears of death and disease constantly plague our thoughts, or at least, the ‘thoughts’ of society, which are then expressed through this film, just as Gothic literature did with its contemporary society.

Oh, and Anthony Stewart Head, aka Giles, is in it, in case that helps.