Lieutenant Hounddog Dan Margoles (Jeffrey Combs) bursts into the Chinese consul to discover a gorey massacre. Maniac John Jaspers (Mark Frost), with wrist-mounted knives, killed everyone then went into a catatonic trance. Jaspers' girlfriend had been tortured & mutilated before his eyes. This was payback.

For Jaspers it is only the beginning. In Faust: Love of the Damned (1991), "M" (for Mephistopheles no doubt) & his demoness companion Claire (Monica Van Campen) provide Jaspers "a new life...everlasting...you can have the power" in trade for his soul. Thereafter he has the power to turn into a red-caped horned devil, ridiculous as all Hell.

When Jaspers exerts his will against this pact, M (Andrew Divoff, turning in the film's best performance by default) has Jaspers burned alive & promises soon to kill the babe psychiatrist Jaspers started to like, vis, Dr. Jade Decamp (Isabel Brook).

He jumped out of the grave ready for further beheadings, flesh eating, & slaughter, but this time as a warrior against M & the protector of Jade.

Cartoony sexploitation is tossed in as tastelessly as the beheadings. It comes off over all as a really crappy imitation of Spawn (), likewise derived from a comic book, but Spawn was very good of kind as film or comic, whereas this imitation is just bad.

Jaspers' unclever wisecracks are all on the order of "Here little piggies, welcome to my show," as though the script were written by an idiot savant without the savant. At the heart of the film is something kind of intriguing, as when Jade must choose between a demon's protection, & trust in classic authority & rationalism. That there's a germ of a good idea in there somewhere just makes Faust more tragic as a failure.

What passes for the film's strength then is the unintentionally comical red devil in firecracker make-up & the gore FX.

The cult of M is far-reaching in the government & as it takes fire to fight one, Jaspers as the Beast is the Destroyer of Beasts, with every opportunity for trashoid violence repleate with cherry syrup.

Jeffrey Combs when he's good he's great, but he's usually disappointing frankly. Here he begins to come alife only after M infects him with faith in evil. Meanwhile the demoness Claire is plotting against M, wanting his power.

When she gets it, alas, she just dresses up like a porn dominatrix & does s/m shtick on Jade in the whips & sex toys dungeon, while M regenerates himself. I had the distinct impression that if Claire were given the power to go back in time, she'd just use that power to buy five cent candybars.

For climax, if you can call it that, Jade is to be sacrificed in the boringly cliche satanic rite. Theo nly newish bit is when Lieutenant Margoles does falacio on an entire albino python. Amidst orgiastic mass suicide of the cultists lorded over by M, Jaspers shows up to save Jade, though by then she's definitely the devil's minion.

The rites brings forth a sperpentine humunculus from Hell, kind of a cool monster I guess, shooting fire & death-rays as it does battle with the Worm. Not entirely devoid of fun, but even so it's pretty awful.

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl