FILM GUTTER REVIEWS: FAUST: LOVE OF THE DAMNED (2000)

Dir. Brian Yuzna, Spain, 98 mins

Having just taken a good long look at Society, it was all too tempting to come back to look at some more of Brian Yuzna's work, and I managed to discover something reasonably obscure – or at least a movie I'd certainly never come across before. And on top of that, I believe it's the first superhero movie we've had the chance to cover here at Film Gutter!

Those of you with long-ish memories will recall that the 90s were not the greatest time for superhero movies, or indeed comic book adaptations in the broader sense. We saw the likes of Tank Girl, Barb Wire, Steel, Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, even Spawn – which I will be revisiting shortly. And coming in at the very tail end of this is 2000's Faust: Love of the Damned, a remarkably strange comic book movie that even days after watching I can't quite wrap my head around.
 
The story itself follows John Jaspers, whom we first meet as a patient in a psychiatric hospital. He's effectively catatonic until he is awakened by unconventional young doctor Jade De Camp and her music therapy (sort of). He goes on to tell her of an incredible (and incredibly rushed) story of how he struck a deal with the devil to get revenge on the men who raped and murdered his girlfriend, all covered in scarcely more than a few minutes. It's not long before he's being suspiciously transferred to another unit, but of course it's the devil's minions and he's forced to make his escape. In the mix of all this also is Lieutenant Dan Margolies, a hard-ass cop played by the inimitable Jeffrey Combs (a firm Yuzna favourite), who wants to know more about this mysterious figure and the murders he has committed.

What follows is really rather hard to explain, as John Jaspers moves beyond the control of M – the 'devil' character of the story – and starts to strike out against his master, all the while having a staggeringly, staggeringly awkward love affair with Jade de Camp. Seriously, in two minutes she goes from being worried about getting raped, to saying 'I wanted you from the first moment I saw you', to then screaming as she recalls her childhood abuse, to then sleeping with him. It's an utter, utter mess. There's a subplot on the ‘evil side’ too as M's assistant Claire looks to usurp him with the help of various minions, and that tension also leads to one of the most bizarre special effects scenes I've ever witnessed – in fact it's oddly in keeping with Society. All of this leads to a thrilling conclusion with a bonkers demonic ritual – if you ever wanted to see Jeffrey Combs swallow a whole snake, you have come to the right place – and plenty of blood and guts for all.
 
It's a Yuzna movie, so there's a good bit of gore to go around in most of the action scenes, and I must admit the soundtrack (courtesy of Roadrunner Records) was a real treat for someone who grew up with late 90's metal. Other than that there's not a huge amount to recommend – I've not read the comic book, so I can't tell you exactly how faithful it is, but everything about this film feels somehow off. Mark Frost in the lead role seems to overact horribly throughout, and to be honest the rest of the cast seem to alternate between overacting and underacting – even the extras add another note of strange discordancy to this one. Jaspers's story is undercooked, the Jade de Camp story makes next to no sense and has an obvious conclusion, Margolies's plot arc seems to skid to an abrupt halt, Andrew Divoff as M is going for a certain suavity, but even that doesn't seem to quite stick somehow. The dialogue is largely wooden, the plot structure is troubling, and for every moment that has something going for it is outweighed by three of four that just didn't work.

This one certainly has echoes of Spawn, both in its look and its music cues, but I'd put this one underneath even that – and Spawn I wouldn't rate that highly. Faust is one of those movies that is somehow fascinating in its execution, a weird Rubik's Cube of a movie which you somehow can't put together right despite all your efforts. There might be a good remake in this someday, but it'd have to be much more carefully, thoughtfully delivered that this gaudy collage.

RATING: 2/10. There are some bits and pieces here that are decent, but as a superhero film it's just a strange, strange offering. It can't seem to quite decide if it wants to be a fluffy 1990s superhero movie or something significantly darker than that, and as such lands in a hinterland where it's really neither. I'd almost recommend watching it to see if you can unmuddle it, find a way through the confusion to what this movie might have been, but that's the operative phrase – might have been. Whatever promise Faust had it rarely delivers on it, so this low mark sadly feels fair.