Faust is a classic German legend focusing on the classic idea of a man selling his soul to the devil. Faust: Love of the Damned takes that basic plot and adds in a heavy metal soundtrack, a bunch of gore and a comic book central character and the result is...well, not even as good as you might think it will be. The inspiration for this film was a comic book by Tim Vigil and David Quinn which, like every other comic book ever made, I haven't read. However, it would seem obvious that director Brian Yuzna took most of his inspiration from this film from the comic book revenge flick 'The Crow', and somehow this film doesn't come off as well. The film focuses on John Jaspers; an artist who witnesses his girlfriend being killed by a bunch of thugs. Some other things happen, and Jaspers end up in contact with the mysterious 'M', who offers him the chance to get revenge on the thugs who ruined his life, for the small price of his soul. Naturally, Jaspers jumps at the chance to sell his soul for revenge, but he later regrets it when he turns into a horned demon...
I'm actually quite a big fan of Brian Yuzna - I wouldn't hesitate to call the likes of Society and Return of the Living Dead 3 modern horror masterpieces; but Faust: Love of the Damned is undoubtedly his worst film. Typically for Yuzna, there's no shortage of gore and gruesome special effects, which is nice and there's plenty of interesting scenes and imagery; but the plot is all over the place, really quite boring and the film doesn't seem to know what it wants to do once the horned demon superhero pops up; it goes from being a demonic horror movie to some sort of comic book comedy! The one liners that Faust utters are awful, and the suit looks pretty damned silly too. Yuzna did manage to collect something of an interesting cast - Mark Frost doesn't really impress in the lead role, but the film has supporting turns for the likes of Jeffrey Combs, who is good in the sort of role you don't often see him in, and Andrew Divoff, who is clearly ripping off his own role in the crappy Wishmaster, but at least it's amusing to see. Overall, Faust: Love of the Damned is really too silly to be taken seriously, and I don't mean that in a good way! Avoid.
