by: Alan Smithee

When I review “Modern Masterpieces” they have to be considered good films. Not just by critics, but by me too. The thing I like about the Look Backs is there is no “good” or “masterpiece” in the title. I can talk about any older film I want and it doesn’t even have to be good! Now just by my saying that does this mean the movie I’m talking about sucks? Well duh!

But I don’t hate this film, it just sucks. It came out at a time where a lot of dark comic book movies were being made (Spawn, The Crow) most of these films were very over the top, had really bad effects, and horrible acting. This truly lives up to all of that but pushes it to a whole new level! Faust started out as a graphic novel written by Tim Vigil and David Quinn. Later on, after it became a sleeper hit, Mr. Quinn wrote a screen play of Faust that was  picked up by director Brian Yuzna (The Dentist, Bride of Re-Animator, Return of the Living Dead III).

It’s about an artist named John whose girl friend is murdered right in front of him. After that he is ready to be done with life, but then he runs into a man named M who makes him a deal. M will give John the power he needs to take down the people who killed his girl friend, if he gives up his soul. Sounds like a great deal to me! John makes the deal and becomes the demon Faust. He gets a nice cape, two swords on his arms, and a very unreal ugly face. M ends up wanting to bring hell to earth, so it’s up to Faust to save the day (spawn) *cough, cough*.

Faust, though sad over his dead girl friend, gets a number of different girls–like left and right, this demon has got it going on! This film has one of my favorite B-actors, Andrew Divoff (Wish Master), who plays the bad guy M, and he is so over the top you just have to love him. Jeffrey Combs (Re-animator) is also in this as a douche bag cop. The acting is bad, just awful, but it really wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t. The CGI isn’t anything big (sorry James Cameron, this film just isn’t for you), and there is one part in it that really doesn’t make sense . . . a girl’s body randomly expands for no reason.  You might not get a lot out of this film, but you don’t really have to. Just sit and enjoy it; you might forget it in a few hours but that’s fine, just watch it four times like I did (;