#25 - The Faculty (1998)

High school can be a stressful, even dangerous place.  Some less popular members of the student body are endlessly harassed and teased, and even physically and mentally abused.  I remember getting beaten up in my own high school at least once or twice, but I was a bit of a nerd back then!  Not like now, eh?  :-D

The Faculty (1998) begins with the murder of a teacher at a high school, and is about an odd mix of high school friends who get mixed up with some dangerous faculty members at their high school.  Call it the Breakfast Club meets Aliens, and you're getting close.

I caught the Faculty on Showtime Beyond, and I've always liked it.  It's got an awesome mix of characters with depth to them, a ned with heroic tendencies, a jock with nerdy tendencies, a weird pseudo-lesbian girl with heterosexual tendencies, a drug dealer with ...  you know I cna't really classify these guys with any degree of accuracy. Put it this way, they're as much like real people as anyone in any horror movie, and you know what they don't do?  Stupid things.  I am running through the movie in my head, and I can't think of a single stupid thing any of them do, to forward the plot.  Amazing, isn't it?  Teens in a movie doing the right thing?  What the hell is this?  Does this even qualify as a bad horror movie?  No, I'd call this a good horror movie.

You've got Elijah Wood (3 years before he became Frodo) as Casey,  Jon Stewart as one of the Faculty, Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) as another member of the Faculty, Famke Janssen (X-Men) as yet another member of the faculty, Josh Hartnett in one of his first-ever movie roles, Clea Duvall, and Jordana Brewster before she added a little class to the fast and furious series.  I mean, with that kind of star power, how can you possibly not love this movie?  There's even aliens, and nudity!  It's got like, everything a good monster movie could want, INCLUDING THE COLON!  Wait, I don't recall seeing a colon in this movie.  You know what, nevermind, forget I mentioned it.  I've seen this movie a bunch, and it's still an entertaining watch.

I'm running behind a movie, so I'll cut this one short, and move on.