Hey folks, Harry here... as a fan of Brian Yuzna's work for a while (my favorite is still his RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3 which just rules the world... I love that flick) and he's had quite a few other fun genre flicks, as well as some that were not quite completely cool throughout... but in all, I love the energy and imagination and sense of fun he brings to the medium and look forward to whatever he is doing in Spain... I'm dying to see his version of FAUST as I was in love with the original comics and even have a great original piece of art from the comic that I have here at Geek Headquarters. The review is a bit lackluster, but he admits to not knowing the comic and Brian may very well of made the film for the fans and not for those unfamiliar with the tale... We'll see...
Hi Harry,
Hannibal here with part two of the Brussels International Film Festival for Fantastic Films. I've been very busy the last couple of days, so I haven't been seeing as many films as I would have liked. Anyhow, yesterday was another top-day of the festival, with the screening of Faust: Love Of The Damned, the new Brian Yuzna film. But I'll get to that a bit later ...
First of all, Mr. Yuzna attended a Q&A (together with Jeffrey "Re-Animator" Combs) to answer some burning questions. It was the usual blabla, until somebody asked him something about his next project. As is turns out, Yuzna is planning to do a sort of haunted house movie next. He said that it's going to be really scary, and that it will have some bigger names than usual (on a personal note: I hope Jeffrey is in it ...). He didn't reveal a title, but he said that he'll start shooting next month, which sound pretty quick to me. The film is going to be the second feature (Faust being the first) for the newly founded company The Fantastic Factory, that only produces genre-pictures. Anyhow, I hope it turns out well, and a bit better than Faust ...
... which brings me to my review of Faust: Love Of The Damned. As you may well know, it is based on a famous graphic novel of the same name by Tim Virgil and David Quinn, who based themselves on the classic story by poet Goethe. Yuzna was a big fan of the novel and decided to turn it into a film.
The story is pretty well known, I guess. John Jaspers, a painter who's wife has recently been killed by some mobsters, wants to jump off a bridge, but he is stopped by a mysterious man named M, who offers him a contract which he has to sign with his blood. Jaspers agrees, but the job turns out to be more than he bargained for. M wants him to kill some of his enemies. Jaspers does this for a while, but then he can't take it anymore and decides to quit, much against M's will, who simply kills him and sends him to hell.
Jaspers manages to escape the fiery pits, and is resurrected as Faust, a sort of superhero that looks like a mix between Spawn and Batman. Up to this point the film manages to be pretty entertaining, if somewhat overdone (and extremely loud). The first couple of scenes (featuring Combs and a lot of mutilated bodies) were awesome and very stylish. But once Faust is resurrected, I simply couldn't follow the story anymore. This may have to do with that fact that I didn't read the comic, but still, aren't non-comic readers allowed to follow? I guess not.
The rest of the film strings together some cool and bizarre looking images injected with a lot of sex and gore that doesn't make much sense. This can't be blamed on the performers who do their jobs pretty well. Jeffrey Combs is very good as the troubled policeman, Andrew Divoff delivers his Pinhead/Wishmaster-style dialogue in a real Pinhead/Whishmaster-style, which is fine, since it blends perfectly with the film's grotesque style, and Mark Frost is pretty decent as Jaspers/Faust, although he overdoes some scenes a bit. The women don't have much to do in this film, except scream and look good naked, which they do very well indeed.
The film on the whole looks great, especially the sets (the film was shot in Spain) and the Faust-makeup (by Screaming mad George) but I'm sorry to say it's all kinda empty ... still: 5/10 for the immense energy that the film manages to convey.
The connoisseurs of the graphic novel may enjoy this one even better ...
Hannibal
