If you have the feeling you've been here before, you have.
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Director Robert Rodriguez made the very violent and very funny Western "Desperado" and the equally violent and funny "From Dusk Till Dawn." Screenwriter Kevin Williamson wrote the violent, scary, and funny "Scream" and "Scream 2." You would think their collaboration on "The Faculty" would have produced a film that was violent, scary, and funny. Sorry. None of the above.
If you have the feeling you've been here before, you have. Far from hiding the fact that the film is mostly borrowed from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," Williamson writes it directly into the screenplay, along with a host of other fright-film allusions. But whereas the homage he paid and the many references he made to other horror films in "Scream 1 & 2" were clever, here they are merely gratuitous. Anyway, like its more recent contemporary, "Disturbing Behavior," in "The Faculty" alien beings are taking over a high school, person by person. They're getting right into people's bodies like parasites and controlling their thoughts and actions.
Of course, they take over the faculty of Herrington High first, teachers being naturally more feeble-minded than kids. Then they start in on the students. But a half a dozen of the youngsters are too smart for them. They catch on and start to fight back. Trouble is, no one believes their story about aliens taking over. Who would? So they must fight it out alone. They finally theorize that there must be an alien leader, and if they kill it, the others will die. Just how they figure this out is unclear, but it works. Now, who is the alien leader?
The hero-students are a mixed bag of Hollywood stereotypes: A self-absorbed socialite who's the editor of the school newspaper; a would-be lesbian outsider; a goody-goody new girl in town; a drug dealer; a jock who's the captain of the football team; and a loser nerd. These roles are played by a familiar cast of youngsters: Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Josh Harnett, Shawn Hatosy, and Elijah Wood respectively.
Plus, there are a number of well-known names in the adult roles: Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Patrick, Salma Hayek, Piper Laurie, Jon Stewart, and others. Like "Disturbing Behavior," "The Faculty" assumes that all kids have paranoid delusions of parents and teachers conspiring against them, and the movie attempts to cash in on the idea. Also running true to Hollywood form, the script has everyone--teachers, parents, and students--swearing from beginning to end. Of course, most people use profanity occasionally and many people use profanity continually, but to have everybody doing it every minute seems more than a little excessive. It also ensures the film an R rating, forcing the very audience it's aiming at to have to sneak into theaters to see it, presumably the point.
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