Faust: Love of the Damned (2000)

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Mark Frost stars as John Jaspers, a young man whose girlfriend "Blue" (Jennifer Rope) is murdered by thugs. Now he's depressed and despondent enough to contemplate suicide - only for an enigmatic stranger, "M" (Andrew Divoff, whose performance outclasses this movie), to turn up and offer him a deal. John WILL get his revenge, but he will have to promise his soul to "M". He agrees with too much haste, and DOES get his revenge, but finds that his work is not done. "M" attempts to dispose of John, only for John to be reborn as a cartoony version of a demon (think a wrestler with a gimmick) and now possessed with incredible powers (including retractable, Wolverine-style blades)."Faust: Love of the Damned" is based on a graphic novel by David Quinn & Tim Vigil, and retains that sort of aesthetic for the film version. As a result, it's highly stylized by director Brian Yuzna ("Society", "Bride of Re-Animator"). Made in Spain around the same time that Yuznas' friend Stuart Gordon made his H.P. Lovecraft adaptation "Dagon", this movie has little to no dramatic impact. What hurts it a lot is the fact that leading actor Frost is so insipid as a hero; he's a bad actor, at least here. To be fair, though, he does seem to be enjoying himself when he's done up in demon garb. Overall, it's an amusing, disposable comic-book style horror-fantasy with a mostly European cast that ranges from passable (Isabel Brook, as the leading lady) to solid (Jeffrey Combs has one of his most normal roles as a dedicated detective) to very hammy (Fermi Reixach, as the police commissioner) to delightfully vampish (Monica Van Campen as M's sexy female cohort). Divoff towers over all with another of his captivating, soft-spoken villainous portrayals. He's quite a sight with his hair done like that, though.Yuzna once again utilizes the services of makeup effects expert "Screaming Mad George", whose work is typically outrageous, goopy, and completely outre. Appropriately Hellish visuals and a persistent heavy metal soundtrack (including Sepultura, one of this viewers' favourite bands) are also part of the mix.A fairly fun movie that kills approximately 101 minutes in well-paced fashion.Six out of 10.

If you have a fetishistic love of gore or weird sexuality, then Faust: Love of the Damned is the movie for you. If, however, you appreciate coherent plotting, passable acting and some semblance of purpose other than to showcase gore and weird sexuality, then Faust: Love of the Damned may not be your cup of tea. I find I generally fall in the latter camp, as Faust: Love of the Damned proved a rather wearisome viewing experience for me.I could explain the plot for Faust: Love of the Damned, but that would require the film to have much of a plot and for me to understand it, and, frankly, Faust comes up short on both fronts. Theoretically, Faust is the story of John Jaspers (Mark Frost), a painter who watches his girlfriend savagely murdered by some local toughs she owes money too, who is so consumed with revenge that he makes a deal with M (Andrew Divoff) for the power to exact his revenge in return for John's eternal soul. As far as the film shows us, though, he made a rather lousy deal, because M just puts some fancy razors on John's arms, and then he proceeds to slice up the responsible parties with them, failing to realize that, well, he didn't really need M's deal to do that. No matter, there wouldn't be a film without said deal, and in addition to signing over his soul, M uses John as his tool to lay waste to a Chinese consulate because, well, the film isn't very clear on that. After the scene at the consulate, John is sentenced to a mental ward, where the fetching Jade de Camp (Isabel Brook) tries to get through to him with her "music therapy". Meanwhile, police Lieutenant Margolies (Jeffery Combs) thinks something is fishy with the whole consulate killings, and begins an investigation.After the above, Faust devolves into a meandering mess that is one part horror film, one part offbeat comedy and one part superhero film. However, nothing in the film really makes sense. M is trapped in a human body he wants to escape from, and is trying to resurrect Hommunculus, an ancient demon, for which a ritual is fast approaching. Who is M, really, you ask? The devil? Maybe, maybe Hommunculus is, I'm not sure. What did signing over John's soul and giving him powers do? I'm also not sure, but it turns out to be a bad move, because John manages to start using his new powers to attempt to thwart M by transforming into a creature that looks like a demon, but with a webby membrane of wings that looks suspiciously like a cape. Meanwhile, one of M's henchmen, Claire (Monica Van Campen) seduces John and most every other character she comes in contact with and engages in rough sex with them, often culminating in some bloody display of murder or torture after that. And Margolies is searching for some information about what is going on, but I'm not entirely sure what that information is, or what he plans to do with it.Basically, Faust is a mess, scenes punctuated by vicious bloodletting or kinky sex, including one rather amusing, and head scratching, scene in which M tortures Claire for plotting against him by making her breasts and buttocks expand exponentially until she basically is a blob of over-sized flesh on the floor. The moments when John transforms into his demon/superhero alter-ego are rather ridiculous, thanks in part to the silly make-up effects for the demon, complete with the aforementioned cape that just flops around when it looks like it should be taut wings. It also doesn't help that most of those scenes are scored by an annoying heavy metal soundtrack that robs the film of any creepy atmosphere. The acting ranges from acceptable, in the form of Combs and Divoff, to astonishingly bad with Frost. Most of the scenes where is supposed to be displaying rage are just him pursing his lips and pouting at camera. Isabel Brook is somewhere in the middle, and Van Campen is just over the top silliness all the time. Most of the actors are probably doing the best they can considering they are delivering inane dialogue to support a nonsensical plot.Faust is directed by Brian Yuzna, a longtime producer/director of low- budget horror films that started off with him producing some of the seminal mid-80s movies of Stuart Gordon, including Re-Animator and From Beyond. Those films, along with the productions Yuzna would later start directing himself, were often weird affairs, displaying a mix of humor, horror and sexuality, so Faust isn't really that far off from Yuzna's typical material, but many of those earlier films had some degree of story and purpose, and also contained some good humor or scares. Faust does have the sex and the blood, but it lacks almost anything else you would expect from a good film, even a low-budget genre piece such as this. Faust is just out and out bad, occasionally amusing or titillating, yes, but nothing more than that.

As far as comic book adaptation go, this one is out there amongst the worst of them. I had a bad time watching it because of how poorly it all was done.The movie is made like a B-movie, with a B-cast & crew but still the movie is visually looking like an A-list movie. It creates an enormous contracts between the visual style and actually quality of the movie. It's perhaps a reason why the works out all the more badly.Brian Yuzna made some decent enough genre movie, with movies that weren't meant as serious ones but with this movie he shows that he's a real lacking director. The movie also features some real bad editing, an horrendous musical score, stupid sound effects and bad looking gore effects. Not only the storytelling of the movie is really lacking but yes, also the actual story itself. It really isn't a solid story and there is way too little actually happening it and all in all, it just simply lacks a main plot line. Thhis is really the biggest problem of the movie. It also rips off one or two too many other movies. The movie also actually features very little action, especially for a genre movie, and the action that it does feature is done incredible bad and is just plain lame. It's obviously not Brian Yuzna's thing. It doesn't actually help to make the movie any more interesting.The movie is done quite tasteless at times, with both its gore and amount of misplaced sexuality.The cast also really didn't do a good job. Odd thing is that halve of the cast consists out of Spanish actors, who were obviously dubbed at a later point during production. But also actors such as Mark Frost and Isabel Brook do a real horrible job. No wonder they starred in so few and meaningless movies. And suddenly their characters fall in love? What was up with that. Talking about a bad placed and unbelievable love story. Oh well, at least it still had Jeffrey Combs in it.Well, yes I admit that there are even worse movies out there but that doesn't really make this a good movie either, now does it.2/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I wasn't sleepy last Sunday night and I chose to watch whatever was on TV. Channel 29 ("Space")was airing this, and I foolishly believed it was "Exorcist III". The movie lacks everything, but it's watchable.John Jaspers made a deal with some sort of devil named "M" to clear M's way to world domination. Somewhere in the way, he repents and ends up in an asylum, where a pretty psychiatrist (or doctor, or whatever) visits him and hears his story. Jaspers claims "they" (M's band) are coming tonight. She hears it as if he was saying "1 + 1 is 3" but on his way out sees something "unusual" and runs away. Indeed, Jaspers is taken away and buried, while the girl calls a detective friend and is caught by the same guys before the cop arrives. Luckily for her, Jaspers is back as Faust, who should (given it's an horror film) look like a devil but most of the time is a red bug ("Bugman":::). Unfortunately, M won't give up, and the bulk of the movie starts there.The cast is nothing spectacular. I wonder why Andrew Divoff keeps getting overlooked by the mainstream, since he's a hell of an actor. The girl who plays the shrink is OH beautiful, and M's chick seems to be taken out of a porn. Comic-based, it should be scary but it is not. However, despite everything, it's worth a watch, even to laugh a while.4/10