The Faculty (1998)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez. Starring Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett, Clea DuVall, Shawn Hatosy, Laura Harris, Jordana Brewster, Robert Patrick, Bebe Neuwirth, Famke Janssen, Daniel von Bargen, Jon Stewart, Piper Laurie, Salma Hayek, Christopher McDonald, Danny Masterson, Wiley Wiggins. [R]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, “Dawson’s Creek,” The Thing, The Breakfast Club, and plenty more are all thrown into the blender for this self-aware sci-fi/horror homage set at a Midwestern high school. Some of the students start noticing suspicious behavior from the teachers and principal, slowly coming to the realization that the adults are being taken over by an insidious alien presence that’ll be coming for them next. The premise is more promising than the execution, as few in the ensemble cast get much of opportunity to stand out, and those that do are a mixed bag—Patrick is a hoot as the temperamental football coach, for example, but Hartnett’s too-cool-for-school bad boy is off-the-rack rebellion of the cheapest order. In fact, none of the main kids do much to endear themselves to the audience, and there’s no logic behind why these disparate stereotypes would ever commingle in the first place (c’mon, they’re teenagers—not even end-of-the-world stakes could do that). Sporadically entertaining, but also disappointingly tepid considering Rodriguez’s subversive filmmaking record. It peddles late-90s scares with a “hip” edge, so, of course, it was scripted by Kevin Williamson (from a story concocted by Bruce Kimmel and David Wechter almost a decade earlier).

54/100