Faust: Love of the Damned

I haven't read the graphic novel which inspired this terrible crap, so I don't know whether it's a bad adaptation, or just a bad movie. And it is a VERY bad movie! I liked Yuzna's debut 'Society' many years ago, and he produced 'Re-Animator' and some other good Stuart Gordon movies which I have a lot of time for, but this is just awful! The two leads Mark Frost and Andrew Divoff are both terrible, the script is an illogical mess, Faust's costume is absolutely ludicrous, and 'Re-Animator' star Jeffrey Combs, who plays a cop, is given so little to do you wonder why he bothered to participate. In short, there is no reason in the world to subject yourself to watching this, one of the worst movies I've seen in quite some time. Man, even 'Spawn' was better than this, and that's REALLY saying something!

Looking to exact revenge on the gangsters who murdered his girlfriend, artist John Jaspers (Mark Frost) strikes a hasty deal with the mysterious 'M' (Andrew Divoff), exchanging his soul for supernatural abilities and a mean set of arm-mounted blades. But in his eagerness, he forgets that it always pays to read the small print before signing a contract, which in this case states that he must continue to kill for M after settling his score. When Jaspers refuses, M has him buried alive, but somehow (details a bit fuzzy here...) the artist comes back from the dead as a demonic being and once again goes looking for retribution.

Anyone looking for a faithful adaptation of the classic German legend is going to be majorly disappointed by Brian Yuzna's Faust, which is less a tragic study of moral abandonment, more a diabolical, blood-soaked, logic-free comic-book-style fever-dream packed with hokey gore, heavy metal, surreal effects and nudity. In telling his demented tale, director Brian Yuzna gives viewers lots of insanely OTT action full of severed body parts and slashed throats, while makeup artist Screaming Mad George provides some suitably weird prosthetics work (including one effect that sees a woman reduced to a giant pair of breasts and a huge ass with a face), and voluptuous actress Mònica Van Campen gets naked and has sex a lot. All of this is accompanied by a thundering soundtrack that includes the likes of Fear Factory, Machine Head and Coal Chamber.

Literary scholars will most likely be appalled by what they see; students of 'serious' horror will think it churlish; I thought it was one hell of a fun time!

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

This is like Wishmaster (1997) but with the devil instead of a malignant genie. The actual monster was seriously cool when it was on the screen but that is for a disappointingly short time. The story was full of twists and interest but something was missing so I found my attention drifting. The ending was great with a big thingy that burnt stuff with wonderfully tacky effects. Not very intense but the ending was worth waiting for.

I have to say I enjoyed this. Yes the dialogues (and much of the acting) are bad and I know nothing about Geothe's hero, Faust. All I know is that this movie got some pretty nasty FX - after all Brian Yuzna directed it! - and a heavy dose of an erotic / pervert element which I enjoyed. Still I find all this satanic stuff too silly for my tastes. And yes this costume sucked!!! As a conclusion, I liked it, nevertheless, I did't take it seriously.

Faust is a classic German legend focusing on the classic idea of a man selling his soul to the devil. Faust: Love of the Damned takes that basic plot and adds in a heavy metal soundtrack, a bunch of gore and a comic book central character and the result is...well, not even as good as you might think it will be. The inspiration for this film was a comic book by Tim Vigil and David Quinn which, like every other comic book ever made, I haven't read. However, it would seem obvious that director Brian Yuzna took most of his inspiration from this film from the comic book revenge flick 'The Crow', and somehow this film doesn't come off as well. The film focuses on John Jaspers; an artist who witnesses his girlfriend being killed by a bunch of thugs. Some other things happen, and Jaspers end up in contact with the mysterious 'M', who offers him the chance to get revenge on the thugs who ruined his life, for the small price of his soul. Naturally, Jaspers jumps at the chance to sell his soul for revenge, but he later regrets it when he turns into a horned demon...

I'm actually quite a big fan of Brian Yuzna - I wouldn't hesitate to call the likes of Society and Return of the Living Dead 3 modern horror masterpieces; but Faust: Love of the Damned is undoubtedly his worst film. Typically for Yuzna, there's no shortage of gore and gruesome special effects, which is nice and there's plenty of interesting scenes and imagery; but the plot is all over the place, really quite boring and the film doesn't seem to know what it wants to do once the horned demon superhero pops up; it goes from being a demonic horror movie to some sort of comic book comedy! The one liners that Faust utters are awful, and the suit looks pretty damned silly too. Yuzna did manage to collect something of an interesting cast - Mark Frost doesn't really impress in the lead role, but the film has supporting turns for the likes of Jeffrey Combs, who is good in the sort of role you don't often see him in, and Andrew Divoff, who is clearly ripping off his own role in the crappy Wishmaster, but at least it's amusing to see. Overall, Faust: Love of the Damned is really too silly to be taken seriously, and I don't mean that in a good way! Avoid.