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“ | Detective Deimos: You're gonna burn for this Angel. Johnny Favorite: I Know. In Hell. |
„ |
~ Johnny Favorite after he's been caught. |
Jonathan Liebling aka Johnny Favorite is the main protagonist villain of the 1987 live-action psychological horror film Angel Heart. He is a Satanic cultist who traded his soul to the Devil for fame and fortune and who later tried to rescind on the deal by performing a ritual on an innocent soldier named Harold Angel.
He was portrayed by Mickey Rourke, who also played Whiplash in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Biography[]
Past[]
Johnny Favorite was a small time singer who used his knowledge of the occult to sell his soul to the Devil for success and money. During one of his trip to New Orleans, he entered a relationship with a woman named Evangeline Proudfoot. Their union would produce a daughter, that Evangeline named Epiphany. He also met the Krusemarks family, fellow occultists, having a relationship with the daughter, Margaret.
Later, when the Devil was about to claim his soul, Favorite, unwilling to go to Hell, enlisted the help of one of his conquest, fellow occultist Margaret and her father Ethan. In 1943, they kidnapped a soldier named Harry Angel and performed a ritual on him, involving tearing his heart out and eating it, which allowed Favorite to steal his soul, preventing the Devil from taking Favorite's. Favorite would then adopt the identity of Angel but following his drafting in WWII, he suffered injuries that rendered him amnesiac. Sent back, he was escorted to a hospital by the Krusemarks, who helped him disappear once he left the hospital. Unaware of his past, Favorite became a private investigator, now convinced that he was Harry Angel.
Angel Heart[]
12 Years later, Angel is contacted by Satan, disguised as a man named Louis Cyphre, who hires him to find Favorite. Unaware of his real identity, Angel accepts and cruises the country looking for evidence of Favorite's whereabouts. However, after each interrogation of Favorite's former acquaintances, Favorite briefly resurfaces over Angel and murders them in violent ways, with Angel none the wiser.
Eventually, Angel makes his way to New Orleans where he meets Epiphany and the two become sexually involved. While hassled by local police officers who suspect him of the murders, Angel finds the Krusemarks and after finding the mutilated body of Margaret, interrogates her father Ethan, who reveals the truth of Favorite's disappearance, and is then drowned to death in boiling hot water moments later. Distraught and disgusted, Angel realizes he is Favorite and is confronted by Cyphre who torments him by revealing that he will take his soul once he dies. Shortly after, Favorite finds Epiphany, who he murdered by shooting her in her genitalia. The detectives arrest him, with the film concluding on shots of a descending elevator, representing Angel/Favorite's own descent into Hell.
Trivia[]
- After the ritual it is ambiguous what is the nature of the Favorite/Angel's souls situation and their fate, with multiple outcomes possible:
- Angel's soul was taken alongside Favorite's
- Only Favorite's soul was claimed by Cyphre while Angel's is freed
- Angel's soul was sent to Hell instead of Favorite's
External Links[]
- Johnny Favorite on the Pure Evil Wiki