The Faculty

Watching 1998's THE FACULTY made me a little nostalgic for the heyday of Miramax/Dimension.  Cheesy '90s horror that is far more enjoyable than the glum, poorly shot, and often recycled crapola ("elevated" or otherwise) that passes for the genre these days.  Even with a teen cast that mostly underwhelms, and appears like an audition for a failed WB pilot.  And with a screenplay by Kevin Williamson, who penned SCREAM and was known for having his characters go on endlessly about movies.  But at least Robert Rodriguez was tapped to direct. 

I actually really enjoyed this.   Borrowing (and quoting) liberally from INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, THE BREAKFAST CLUB, THE THING, and a hundred others, THE FACULTY concerns the alarming overnight transformations of teachers and students at Herrington High School.  After an opening scene where the staff complain about budget cuts and generally act like typically disgruntled educators, they become strangely content, almost STEPFORD like.  But not before Coach Willis (Robert Patrick) attacks Principal Drake (Bebe Neuwirth) late one night.  Why? Earlier, an unseen figure approached the coach before a fadeout; one of those "Oh, it's you" moments you see in horror films before something bad happens.   Soon the student body becomes similarly glassy eyed and unemotional. 

Our sextet of heroes try to get to the bottom of it.  

1. Casey (Elijah Wood) - Shy photographer for the school paper.  

2. Delilah (Jordana Brewster) - Head cheerleader and editor of said paper.  Despite her bitchiness, Casey's got a thing for her.  But her boyfriend is....

3. Stan (Shawn Hatosy) - Star quarterback who's been thinking of chucking football to focus on academics.  

4.  Zeke (Josh Hartnett) - The guy who supplies everyone with ecstasy.  He's quite bright but has to repeat his senior year.

5. Stokely (Clea DuVall) - Class outcast, rebel.  Has everyone thinking she's a lesbian.

6. Marybeth (Laura Harris) - The new girl. Eager, perhaps too eager to make friends.

The teens, perhaps excepting Hartnett, who's very entertaining, are kinda blah, yet we engage with them enough for this story to take flight.  The faculty is far more colorful, with the likes of Piper Laurie, Jon Stewart, Famke Janssen, and even Salma Hayek among them.  Patrick especially is perfectly cast, at times paying homage to TERMINATOR 2  Yet for a movie called THE FACULTY, there are not enough scenes with the adults, as the film quickly focuses on the kids.  Rodriguez does give the film an agreeable pace and ramps things up perfectly for the climax.  A lot of fun. We may even learn that drugs aren't so bad after all. 

Plenty of CGI effects here, but surprisingly it still looks really good, especially when "the queen" - the head alien who began this mess, appears near the end.  This will be one of the aforementioned characters, but I'm no spoiler.  I especially liked a locker room scene where the character's shadow is a mass of tentacles.

P.S. - Beware some mediocre covers on the soundtrack.