PORTFOLIO
John Faust
Writer · Director · Producer · Media Artist
My creative practice spans independent film, horror-host television, Gothic adaptation, documentary media, live production, and short-form narrative work. Across these projects, I have worked as a writer, director, producer, performer, and media creator. My work is especially concerned with horror, cultural memory, adaptation, spectatorship, identity, and the ways genre can be used to explore lived experience. These selections represent the strongest examples of my current media practice and the body of work I hope to develop further through doctoral study.
Selected work in horror, adaptation, documentary media, live production, and short-form narrative.
DEMENTED FEATURES
DEMENTED FEATURES
Live Halloween Special
Year: 2024
Roles: Writer · Director · Producer · Performer
Runtime: 1:48:46
A live Halloween broadcast of Demented Features, my long-running independent horror-host series combining performance, comedy, classic horror, and genre commentary. The special brought together scripted material, live performance, prerecorded segments, and real-time production, requiring me to work simultaneously as writer, director, producer, and performer.
This piece is especially representative of my creative practice because it brings together the areas that have defined much of my work: horror, performance, writing, directing, collaboration, and independent media production.
DEMENTED FEATURES
Channel Trailer
Year: 2018
Roles: Writer · Director · Producer · Performer
Runtime: 02:39
A promotional trailer for Demented Features, my long-running independent horror-host series. The piece introduces the show’s tone, visual identity, performance style, and mix of classic horror, comedy, original character work, and genre commentary while giving a concise overview of the larger project.
This trailer represents the broader identity of Demented Features and shows how I approach branding, performance, editing, tone, and audience engagement across an ongoing body of independent media work.
Varney the vampire
The Feast of Blood
Varney the Vampire
Trailer
Year: 2016
Roles: Writer · Director · Producer · Performer
Runtime: 01:21
A promotional trailer for Varney the Vampire, an independent Gothic horror project inspired by nineteenth-century vampire literature and the traditions that helped shape modern screen horror. The trailer highlights the project’s atmosphere, visual style, period influences, and approach to adaptation while introducing the tone and world of the larger work.
This piece represents my interest in Gothic source material, adaptation, visual storytelling, and independent genre production, and shows how I translate literary and historical influences into screen-based work.
Varney the Vampire
Episode One
Year: 2016
Roles: Writer · Director · Producer
Runtime: 03:17
The opening episode of Varney the Vampire, an independent Gothic horror series adapted from the nineteenth-century penny dreadful tradition. The episode establishes the project’s visual language, period atmosphere, characters, and narrative world while demonstrating my approach to adaptation, directing performance, and low-budget genre filmmaking.
This episode is one of the clearest examples of my narrative filmmaking, showing how I work with source material, performance, atmosphere, pacing, and visual storytelling to build a sustained Gothic world.
The Macabre Tourist
Year: 2015
Roles: Writer · Director · Producer · Host · Cinematography
Runtime: 04:49
A documentary-style installment of Macabre Tourist exploring the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora and the cultural fascination surrounding sites associated with death, memory, and the macabre. The piece combines location-based storytelling, historical context, on-camera presentation, and visual documentation to examine how a place can become both a historical site and an object of dark tourism.
This piece shows a different side of my media practice, bringing together documentary storytelling, cultural history, place, performance, and my longstanding interest in horror and the macabre.
Night of the Living Dead
The First Reports
Year: 2025
Roles: Writer · Director · Producer · Performer
Runtime: 26:05
A media-based adaptation project that reframes Night of the Living Dead through newly created news-report segments intercut with material from the original film. Developed as part of a broader Houston Arts Alliance–supported project, the piece uses broadcast form, editing, performance, and archival imagery to reconsider how the story might be experienced through the language of live reporting and mediated crisis.
This project is especially representative of my interest in adaptation and media form because it does more than restage familiar material; it changes the way the audience receives the story by filtering it through another mode of communication.
DEBATE
Short-Form Play Festival
Year: 2025
Roles: Writer · Director · Producer
Runtime: 14:19
A short-form scripted film produced through Houston Media Source. I wrote and directed the piece, developing the material from script through production and shaping the performances, pacing, and visual storytelling within a compact narrative format.
I included Debate because it represents some of my strongest polished narrative work and shows my approach to both screenwriting and directing in a focused short-form production.