Faust: Love of the Damned

Brian Yuzna, the happily disturbed director of such films like `Society' and the `Re-Animator' sequels, returns here with an ultra-violent movie that goes straight for attacking the viewer's last bit of good taste. John Jaspers makes a pact with the devil…In return for his eternal soul; he's offered the change to avenge the death of his girlfriend. John is satisfied after this, but the devil (referred to as `M') wants John to go on with his killing spree. He refuses and gets buried, only to resurrect as Faust! A typical comic book and cloaked superhero, but slightly more bloodthirsty than the average Bat-, Spider- or Superman. Is `Faust – Love of the Damned' a good movie? No…not at all, in fact, but it could have been worse. The basic Faust plot outline (selling your soul to the devil) is as old as cinema itself. The eminent director F.W Murnau (Nosferatu) already made a film with this theme back in 1926. Try and compete with that, Brian Yuzna! The screenplay contains a few slightly ingenious aspects, like the character of the insatiable, sex-addicted sidekick of M, played by the ravishing Monica Van Campen. But the biggest goal of Faust is showing as much gore as humanly possible. Make-up artist Screaming Mad George gets to be his old, filthy self again and inserts grotesque gore such as eye poking and decapitations. There even is a melting-sequence, entirely in the tradition of `Society'. Regretfully, the acting performances are a giant letdown… Mark Frost overacts terribly and Andrew Divoff (who already annoyed the hell out of me in `Wishmaster') is the most undeserved horror lead ever. Jeffrey Combs still is the man, although it hurts to see him being downgraded straight to the supportive cast. Furthermore, there's not the least bit of tension, depth or atmosphere so I wouldn't exactly call this a successful new horror film. Lots of fun guaranteed if you're a gorehound, though

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.

Say what you will about Bryan Yuzna, the man has found a very distinctive niche in the subterranean levels of the body-horror-comedy market. Although it is superfluous to attempt a summary of this hokum, it is the sheer exuberance and vitality of its execution that you will remember. There are demonic skeletons, grotesque bodily transformations, satanic rituals, eye-popping gore and more blood-drenched T&A than you can shake a stick at. Beelzebub himself even makes an appearance in full latex glory during the deranged climax. The result is like Dario Argento swallowed an entire sheet of acid before whopping 5 grams of cheap cocaine up his shnoz bucket. Sure, it's ludicrous tripe but I can't understand how this hasn't found a larger cult audience. If it's a late night gore fest with added laughs you're after, this will hit the spot.

This isn't going to be a long review infact it's very small compared to all the others i've read here today, i first saw a clip of this on some programe on the BRAVO channel it was the part where he was in the alley saving the Doc, when he rips open the top of the car, once i'd seen that clip i tried my local vid shop naad they'd never heard of it plus they weren't very helpful, so i went online and ordered it, at first i was a little bit miffed, they're wasn't as much blood as i thought there would be, and the part where she turns into a blob, mmmm. That aside i thought the film was fantastic, the actors were actually all very good, and as for Monica Van Campen, what can i say, i am now a huge fan!!

My last word on it is that it is or will be a classsic.

Wolverine can only hope to that good.

Yes, it's a strange movie. Yes, I still don't know if I like it: Divoff was right as M, I liked him. The plot place for Van Campen's character was right, too, although her own dubbing (to spanish) was bad bad bad. Mark Frost was Jim Carrey in a Gore movie but I liked his Faust part of the role. The psychiatrist character and actress are the most defined and well worked ones. The FX were right (wonderful make-up, specially the Van Campen-turns-into-DesireWoman one: horny at the beginning and more disturbing as it went on). But the mix of bad acting, Spawn-theft plot and bad worked scenes and connections didn't leave me clear one thing: did I like this movie? I don't know...