It's always great to return to a film you had a good time with, many years after you last saw it, and be blown away by just how great it is. So it is with Robert Rodriquez's The Faculty, a school set reworking of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers as mind controlling parasites take control of a Ohio High School's teaching faculty, swiftly followed by the students.
Several things immediately stand out when rewatching the movie. Rodriguez's direction is fantastically slick and ungimmicky when not dwelling in his usual arena of kiddy flicks and exploitation action movies, the cast is beyond impressive being a who's who of TV and cinema talent ranging from Laura (Dead Like Me) Harris, Josh (Black Hawk Down) Hartnett, Jordana (Fast & Furious) Brewster, Clea (Identity) DuVall and Elijah (Lord Of The Rings) Wood...and that's just the kids!
But it's the script by Kevin Williamson that really impresses. It's not just the way he weaves post-modern references of alien invasion in pop culture like Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, The Thing and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. There's the Breakfast Club ensemble of teens who work out their issues during the crisis, there's the escapism of having pupils fight the authority figures of the teaching staff, and the effortless way the separate strands of the massive ensemble gradually team up (whether it's the teachers or the kids) before the two groups openly go head to head with the fate of the world at hand. Each of the brilliantly cast teens is made even more relatable by making them isolated loners whether it's the new girl, the lesbian/goth, the nerd, the bitch, etc. It's a fantastically structured movie that's focused on character while weaving it's familiar alien possession narrative that's made all the more engrossing with some top notch effects and plot twists.
Sod off Scream franchise, The Faculty rules.
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