Review: The Faculty (1998)

Tonight's movie was not supposed to be The Faculty: The plan had been to watch Night of the Comet, a borderline horror film from 1984.  However, issues with the Blu-ray player forced me into a streaming solution, so this film was quickly slotted in.  Thus, I ended up with the second movie from 1998 to feature Josh Hartnett (after the previously-reviewed Halloween H20, his debut film).

This movie is a combination of The Thing, The Breakfast Club, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers: partly homage (there is a decapitated head that crawls across the ground that couldn't be anything but) and partly a twist on those various movies' formulas.  And it is a fun twist on them.  It doesn't rewrite any of the genres it is pulling from, but it does use the tropes wisely.

The plot: Aliens are invading a small town by sticking parasites inside the brains of various people, with them starting at the local high school.  Various students (played by Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Shawn Hatosy, and Laura Harris) realize that something weird is going on and work to stop the invasion.

Now, in case you didn't notice, that is quite a stacked cast for our students.  It also extends to the titular faculty, with Robert Patrick, Piper Laurie, Bebe Neuwirth, Famke Janssen, Jon Stewart, and Salma Hayak.  How this movie got such a cast, I cannot say (did director Robert Rodriguez have that much pull post-From Dusk till Dawn?), but it definitely works in the film's favor.  Most of these actors could play these roles in their sleep, but everyone is 100% committed to the characters they are playing.  Patrick, in particular, is having a blast as the asshole football coach.

If I am going to criticize any aspect of the script, it would be that the students figure out the basics of the aliens far too fast.  Part of that is because of the runtime of 104 minutes (precious little time given how many characters there are), but it would've been nice if the discovery of weaknesses/anatomy were discovered by accident or happenstance.  Even with the caveat of the smartest one being a drug dealer who makes his own drugs (to give him science credibility, I guess?), it reads as a bit forced.

To keep this review relatively short (compared to my other reviews) this is a fun little time capsule and an above-average teen horror flick.  An easy recommend

7 out of 10