I Was A Teenage Faust



It’s time for English class, and the teacher is getting ready to start the class on their next literary work, Faust, a classic German tale in which a man, successful yet dissatisfied with life, sells his soul to the Devil for worldly knowledge. But one dorky teen in the back of the class named Brendan keeps raising his hand to interrupt her. Slightly peeved at the distraction, she asks him what he wants. His meek response is to ask if he can be excused from this particular lesson. Not because he’s already read the poem, but because he lived it, temporarily selling his soul to a lesser demon known only as Mr. Five, all so that he could achieve enough popularity to catch the eye of his equally popular crush in his tiny high school in Central Indiana.



Next up in my “I Was A ___” study is I Was A Teenage Faust, an American teen comedy from 2002 from director Thom Eberhardt, who may be more popularly known for his work on Night of the Comet and Honey, I Blew Up The Kid. This film marks my first Made-for-TV movie in this month’s category. But interestingly enough this wasn’t made for a channel that was typically aimed at teen viewership. Instead it was actually produced by Showtime and was initially aired on December 15. Which probably means the channel likely commissioned the film as some light-hearted family comedy that they could air during the Christmas season (though it is in no way a Christmas-themed film).



Regardless of their intentions though, because it was produced by Showtime that means that this silly Made-for-TV movie actually had a budget of which to speak. Meaning I don’t have to complain about the typical stuff that I usually end up talking about here, like crappy lighting. Or horrendous sound. Or lousy film quality. Nope, everything here looks and sounds pretty good actually, so let’s thank God for that. The only downside of which to speak of in the quality department is that, due to the time period in which the film was made (I suspect), it doesn’t appear that anyone thought ahead enough to think about shooting the film in any kind of HD. So the film quality can be a bit grainy, and the only versions of the movie that I’ve been able to find have been in the older, square 4:3 format. So unless the DVD has a really up-scaled version, maybe don’t expect the greatest of film quality here.



And being made by Showtime also means that the film is cast with decent actors. So you’ve got Josh Zuckerman and Noel Fisher as a couple of the kids. Then on the adult end you’ve got the likes of veteran TV and movie actor Stuart Margolin, comedian Robert Townsend, and the always lovely Morgan Fairchild in supporting roles. Which, when you’re talking about kids films like this, means that those adults end up being the backbone of the movie. And while nobody may have delivered an Oscar worthy performance or anything like that (it’s just a lighthearted comedy, after all), they all did a good job in the roles they were given. So I really don’t have any complaints in this department either.





The film’s downside, sadly, lies in the story. And it’s not even that it’s a bad story in any way. Because it’s not. It’s just that the concept has been done before. Like…a lot. There have literally been dozens of films over the years that involves some poor, down on his/her luck schmuck who makes a deal with the devil (or some lesser demon) for something like fame, money, love (you name it) and then spends the whole rest of the movie learning some big moral lesson about how the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, or how you’re supposed to like yourself the way you are, or something as equally corny. And then it’s all – something something something – they somehow manage to get out of their devil pact, lesson learned, everything works out for the best, The End. You’ve probably seen or read the same tale a dozen or so times already. It’s essentially the plot of that Jack Black Dear Santa film that came out in 2024. Oh! Or Bedazzled! A movie with a very similar plot that starred Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley and came out – checks… – just two years before this one? Wow… Except it’s not as good as those because most of the jokes are only serviceable at best, and the ones that are good are either few in number or get run into the ground.



So, basically, I Was A Teenage Faust is one of those movies that’s just…fine. It doesn’t do anything egregiously bad, but it doesn’t do anything exceptionally good either. It’s just a very… Serviceable kids film that offers a familiar morality tale. Which I kinda hate, because it means that I don’t really have anything to bitch about or praise. It’s well made, the characters and acting fit, it’s not filled with a bunch of corny jokes, and the dialogue is actually half decent. The only thing I can think of is that the pacing is a little slow (especially for a kids film). But even with that the story is still solid and was clearly thought out. Hell, it even bucked a couple of lazy tropes and contained a nice twist or two at the end there, which I actually really liked. So like I said it’s…fine. Most adults are probably going to find it pretty boring, especially since they’ve already likely seen this exact same story multiple times before at this point. Though even they might get a chuckle or two out of watching it, just to see some of the things all the adults back then assumed all ‘the kids’ thought were COOL back in the early 2000’s. And I imagine a lot of older kids would probably be bored with it too. But I didn’t notice anything truly objectionable in it, so those with younger kids can likely put it on without fear. I mean, they’ll probably get bored with it too by the end, but at least it’ll give you something to distract them with for an hour or so. Though they’ll still probably end up being confused over what the hell a Faust is supposed to be.

I Was A Teenage Faust is available on a variety of streaming services.

I Was A Teenage Faust is also available on DVD, but is out of print.

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