The press for Repo! The Genetic Opera has been going strong for a long, long time now…and I have to be honest in saying that I never was sold on the idea. Set in the year 2056, the movie illustrates a scary world where one company controls all organ transplants and high-end plastic surgery. Easy financing leads to some of the most gruesome repossessions you could imagine - hence, the title. The movie’s biggest claims to fame have always been a cult-like appeal and the name Paris Hilton, who was attached to the project early.

Did I mention it’s also a musical? But if you’re expecting something sort of oddball and fun like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or something dark and grim like Sweeny Todd, you could be taken by surprise. Reviews for the movie are in…and no one seems to be raving for Repo! or Miss Hilton, either.

Repo! The Genetic Opera has a title that explains it all. According to the LA Times, the movie is “like a true opera in that the film almost exclusively features singing instead of dialogue.” Just imagine Pirates of Penzance, without the funny songs and set in the future. The same review points to “gaping holes” in the exposition end of the plot and flat-out says “the is film is bad—not good-bad, tacky-bad or fun-bad, just plain awful and nearly unwatchable.”

Ouch. The Times goes on to report that “The score is mostly a tuneless, fake-industrial throb, without a catchy hum-ability.” Paris Hilton’s singing is described as a “hoarse bark” that is “used as little as possible.”

The Star Tribune gives the movie two out of four stars, saying that throughout the movie Paris Hilton “vamps cluelessly.”

E! was a little more forgiving of the heiress’s performance, saying her “pout is convincing,” but that the plot is “convoluted” and “filled with very little dialogue that isn’t delivered in some kind of duet.”

The Associated Press, however, pulled no punches in their write-up of the film, calling Repo! “easily one of the worst movies of the year, if not all time,” and saying it’s “not even worthwhile in a culty, midnight-movie way. In fact, it’s hard to tell whether ‘Repo! is trying to be serious or funny” due to the “erratic” tone.

View the clip above to see and hear some of the singing for yourself. Could it really be as bad as they say? Repo! was initially scheduled for an April release, but has since been slated for a limited release through November (only four U.S. cities will carry the flick). The DVD will be available in January, but the soundtrack has been out since September 30.