THE FACULTY

Yup, that's right. Williamson tries to do the same for the alien invasion genre that he did for the teen slasher horror movie in Scream I and II, that is to try and imbue it with a post-modernist sensibility. Or translated: ever wondered why some characters in sci-fi movies and television episodes are slow on grasping a situation? Especially when you, the viewer, had already figured it out? Haven't they read any science fiction or watched any episodes of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits?

Not the case with the young cast of The Faculty. Like the audience members they are quick on the uptake and quickly realize that their small town school (the teachers being first) is being infiltrated and "possessed" by alien creatures and what should be done about it. After all, they also saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers and read Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters . . .

And John Carpenter's 1982 The Thing, which - although never mentioned in the movie itself - was a huge influence, especially when the small group of teenagers start to mistrust one another. After all, an alien may possess any one of them . . .

What to make of The Faculty? On the one hand it laboriously follows the genre conventions of said alien invasion and horror movies. (Translated: the plot is very predictable, after all, we've already seen this.) On the other hand, it is acutely aware of this and lets its audience in on the joke. It's no problem, really: after all it worked for the Scream movies, but to be honest it doesn't work quite as well here.

The Faculty lacks the sheer energy and freshness of what made Scream so unique. Besides that, the characters' knowledge of said alien invasion stories serves as little more than a plot device that allows them to catch up on the situation - something they were bound to do sooner or later. Maybe Williamson just didn't know enough sci-fi movies of this particular subgenre to pepper the movie with references to them.

However, The Faculty is still a reasonable fun time at the cinema because it tends to be more character focused and driven than most movies of this type.

Sure, all the high school teenager types are represented here: the school wimp, the brilliant underachiever and proud of it, the football jock, the dressed in various shades of black Alley Sheedy type outsider, etc. It feels like a Breakfast Club reunion! But here they seem to be more imbued with more human and likeable qualities than in most teenage movies.

Also, stories such as this must be character-driven. Otherwise, how else would one notice when they are behaving weirdly and thus "possessed" by aliens? For example, the teachers possessed by the aliens actually seem to improve as people: the stressed out gym teacher positively mellows out and the insecure English teacher becomes more self-confident! A nice touch and the sort of thing that makes The Faculty worth a rental . . .

The Faculty is an example of what could be termed as "film geek cinema". After all, it is filled with references to other movies and film geek types can score extra points with their film geek pals for catching all the references and puns. Included in The Faculty's cast is Robert Patrick as the gym teacher. He is of course best known to audiences as the T-1000 liquid man in Terminator II, a role that he also sent up in Wayne's World.

Sexy Salma Hayek, cast as the deliciously-named Santanico Pandemonium in director Rodriguez's previous film (From Dusk Till Dawn) is decidedly unsexy and underutilized as the hypochondriac school nurse. Harry Knowles who runs the enormously popular Ain't It Cool News website can also be seen lurking around in the teacher's lounge - although I can't remember him uttering a single line of dialogue. By the way, he's the big, bearded red-haired dude . . .
 

• Read the script.