re:mote voices

Title: Faust: Love of the Damned
Cast: Mark Frost, Isabel Brook, Jennifer Rope, Jeffrey Combs, Monica Van Campen, Marc Martínez, Andrew Divoff
Director: Brian Yuzna

David Quinn and Tim Vigil created a comic called Faust, which was obviously based to some degree on the Faustian saga, with an updating in the process. The comic was one of the most brutal pieces of sequential narrative that I have ever seen, in both sexual and violence terms. There followed a film adaptation, which I had spotted playing in a horror festival a couple of years ago, but had never managed to actually see. Until I found it cheap on DVD recently. While it does its best to present this brutal, demonic plot, and the sex and violence that were in the comic, it unsurprisingly is incapable of approaching that level and still getting released. In some ways there are parallels between this film version and the film of the Crow. Both featuring a man start that sees gangsters invade their home and murder their girlfriends. In this case however the man survives, to be offered a chance at revenge, which will give him demonic power in exchange for his soul. Of course he has been tricked, and has been set up as a pawn, to be a tool for occultists who plan on bringing the devil to earth. As a film Faust is perhaps to clichéd and Hollywood, the decision to make the central killer become demonic seems an excess, and an excuse to layer on make up and special effects. From the couple of issues of the comic that I have read the idea was more about madness, and how madness could turn into this kind of violence. With the move into demonic territory the script becomes plagued by one liners, and a heavy metal soundtrack. For people familiar with the comic, or fans of this kind of horror film then Faust might hold some interest – and it does have its moments as a genre film – but on the whole it can’t live up to its potential.