The 1999 horror flick was directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Kevin Williamson. It’s the story of a group of high-schoolers whose school has been taken over by aliens.
License – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
PLOT:
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
Casey Connor ( Elijah Wood ) the nerdy-photographer type, whose parents are both teachers, attends his Ohio high school, unassuming of any bizarre occurences. One day, while walking across the football field, he finds a strange aquatic lifeform in the grass. Out of curiosity, he takes it to his science teacher. It reacts quite strangely with water, releasing long, red tentacles from it’s body like a lionfish.
License – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
Later, along with Stokely ( Clea Duvall ) he breaks into the faculty room, in search of anything suspicious. Aside from the absurd amount of cone-drank water the teachers were consuming, they found the body of a dead teacher in the closet. The two getting caught. They also witness the two teachers knock out their teacher, Salma Hayek, and infect her. The police are called, but either are “in on it” or more probably just don’t believe Frodo’s claims. The next day, they’re both on edge, teaming up, after realizing that their teachers are probably members of the alien invaders community.
Also, there’s the school’s drugdealer, Zeke ( Josh Harnett ), a rather shady individual who plays a smallish role. He teams up with Casey and Stokely to find a way to solve the alien problem. There’s also Marybeth ( Laura Harris ) a Georgian girl, who just enrolled to the school.
After subtracting a specimen of the alien species, the group find out that Zeke’s drugs cause them to dry out. So they come up with the amazing plan to kill all of the aliens in the school with drugs. Yeah, when you think of it, it really is kinda’ stupid.
Long story short, Marybeth was the alien Queen, she and Zeke die. Frodo and Stokely live happily ever after. The End.
CONCLUSSION:
Despite being a Rodriguez film, it didn’t quite feel like one. It didn’t have the insanely exagerated “what is even going on right now” kind of feeling like the Spy Kids quadrilogy, or the big-action type of style from Planet Terror or Desperado. It’s definately one of the more standout movies of Rodriguez’s filmography, but in a way that’s a good thing in this case.
The Faculty was overall a decent movie, which I can’t say about many high school movies. Comparing it to say, ‘Final Destination’, which I consider an alright film, the film had better pacing, acting, directing and, well was just a better film in general. Either way, The Faculty didn’t deliver any mindblowing new revelations to the horror genre, nor did it have any Oscar deserving performances ( even though it was nice to see a pre-Frodo role from Wood ) the film just has an alright score, which is perfectly fine. It wasn’t trying to be the next big thing, just at least a good one. Overall, I’d give this film a 6.5/10.
-The Screenwriter