THE FACULTY (1998)
Starring Josh Hartnett and Famke Janssen
Pretty damn good high school horror flick from Dimension Films that sadly bombed at the box office when it was released to theaters on a Christmas Day, not a good time to distribute a film aimed almost entirely at high school kids.
It does a hell of a job recapturing some of the feel and mood from classic alien invasion films from the 1950s, such as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "I Married a Monster From Outer Space." While not as good as Robert A. Heinlen's "Puppet Masters," one of the best paranoia pics of the 1990s, it nonetheless has enough suspense and shocks to make it more than a worthwhile rental.
"Scream" scribe Kevin Williamson is credited with writing the screeplay, but many say the real writers were David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel. Williamson got the credit to enhance the film's box office. The film was such a bomb, however, that many believe it may have singlehandedly killed the teen horror genre.
My own belief is that it didn't have any big name teen stars, like "Scream" did with Neve Campbell or "I Know What You Did Last Summer" with Jennifer Love Hewitt. It also came out during Christmas vacation. These films really need to be released while kids are attending school. The ritual for seeing horror pics is for groups of kids to go together. That doesn't happen on Christmas Day.
In any case, hopefully the film will be resurrected on video, a la "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "The Stepfather."
A group of misfits at a high school begin to suspect their faculty is possessed by aliens when two of them happen to spot the football coach (Robert Patrick, who played the evil cyborg pitted against Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Terminator 2") and another teacher implant a tiny parasite into the ear of the school nurse (Salma Hayek).
Naturally, they begin to suspect that the entire school's been infected and finally, after their suspicions are confirmed, begin to suspect each other. Janssen plays a nerdy high school teacher who becomes a seductress after the aliens take over her.
I'm not going to reveal too much about the film, other than to say see it. The cast is a little dull (not nearly as entertaining or dynamic as the one that Dimension Films lined up for "Scream" or even what Sony gave us in "The Craft") and the first half of the film is pretty slow. But, all in all, the flick rocks. It even features a naked alien chick on the loose.
