The Faculty

The Faculty
Directed by	Robert Rodríguez
Written by	Kevin Williamson David Wechter (story) Bruce Kimmel (story)
Produced by	Elizabeth Avellan
Starring	Jordana Brewster Clea DuVall Laura Harris Josh Hartnett Shawn Hatosy Salma Hayek Famke Janssen Piper Laurie Bebe Neuwirth Robert Patrick Usher Raymond Jon Stewart Elijah Wood
Cinematography	Enrique Chediak
Edited by	Robert Rodríguez
Music by	Marco Beltrami
Distributed by	Dimension
Release dates	December 25th, 1998
Running time	104 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$15,000,000 (estimated)

The Faculty is a 1998 horror film/science-fiction film, written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Robert Rodríguez. The film stars Elijah Wood, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris and Josh Hartnett.

Plot summary

Template:Spoilers The Faculty is about a fictional high school, Herrington High (said to be located somewhere 'in the middle of Ohio), at which the faculty and staff become taken over by parasitic aliens. In turn, the faculty then infects the students with the organism. A rag-tag group of six students resists, including: Zeke Tyler (Josh Hartnett), a loner and genius repeating his Senior year because he didn't care about graduating, whose parents travel constantly so as to 'get away from their big bastard mistake,' and who sells, among other illegal items, a cocaine-like drug of his own creation to his fellow students; Stan Rosado (Shawn Hatosy), a jock who decides Senior year to quit the football team and focus on his academics; Stan's girlfriend Delilah Profit (Jordana Brewster), a popular, yet vindictive girl who is the editor in chief of the student paper; Casey Connor (Elijah Wood), an outcast picked on by the students at Herrington, who has a crush on Delilah, and who is intelligent and a photographer for the school newspaper; Stokely 'Stokes' Mitchell (Clea DuVall), a female outcast who claims to be a lesbian in order to prove her independence from people, and has a crush on Stan; and Marybeth Louise Hutchinson (Laura Harris), the new girl at school, claiming to have come from Atlanta to live with relatives because her parents had died in a car crash, and who has a crush on Zeke.

The aliens who take over the school do so by injecting a parasitic organism into the ear, which takes over the brain and creates what appears to be a different version of the person--one that desires to spread the parasite as much as it can. The faculty sends the entire student body to the nurse for ear inspections, where they are taken over by the parasite. Before this, however, Casey has figured out their plot (he and Delilah are hiding in the teacher's lounge closet when they see the nurse taken over by the parasite), and he warns Stokely, Delilah, and Stan. Joined by Zeke and Marybeth, who overhear them talking of aliens in the science lab, they are all convinced of Casey's theory when Mr. Furlong (Jon Stewart), the science teacher, enters the room and attempts to infect them with the alien. Zeke pulls out a pen filled with his drug, and jams it into Furlong's eye, which then dissolves the alien inside his brain.

Thus, they all leave the school, which has become completely infected, and go to Zeke's house with a sample of the parasite, where they verify that Zeke's drug is diuretic/desiccant and drys the alien out. Stokely speculates that destroying the queen alien will kill all the parasites, without killing their victims. Soon, the group becomes suspicious of each other. To prove that they have not been infected, they each take turns snorting the drug. When Delilah's turn came, she refused, revealing that she had already been infected. She then destroys most of Zeke's supply of the drug, as well as his equipment for producing it, before getting away. With the remainder of his drug, the remaining five go to the school (where the entire town is watching the school football game). They succeed in killing Principal Drake (Bebe Neuwirth), but the other hosts remain unaffected and Stan is infected. Because they ran out of their supply of the drug, Zeke and Casey decide to go to Zeke's car for more. Marybeth and Stokely wait inside the school gym, for their return. While Casey served as the decoy, Zeke went to his car. There, he encounters Miss Burke (Famke Janssen), who is infected; he decapitates her by driving into a bus, though she survives.

At the same time, Marybeth reveals herself to be the queen alien by changing into a large aquatic creature. Casey returns before Zeke, and he and Stokely must run from the transformed Marybeth. Zeke returns with more of the drug, only to find that Stokely, too, has been infected. He and Casey fight Marybeth, but Zeke is knocked out, leaving only Casey. In an attempt to persuade Casey into surrendering, Marybeth delivers a speech about how she crashed onto Earth, came to their school, found all of them alienated and unhappy, and started infecting them in order to create a better life for the entire world, one of harmony and acceptance, and then attempts to seduce him. Casey rejects her advances, running through the back of the gym's bleachers after triggering them to collapse against the wall, and the alien (having chased him) becomes trapped. Casey then stabs the drug into her eye, killing her.

After this, these five adolescents are completely changed--Zeke applies his genius to schoolwork and has joined the football team (and seems to be dating Miss Burke); Stan and Stokely become boyfriend and girlfriend; Stokely changes her appearance and is happy now; Delilah and Casey become boyfriend and girlfriend; Casey is more accepted at school and Delilah is no longer vindictive.

Trivia

• The naming of the characters contains inside jokes, such as Principal Drake (the Drake equation being one that attempts to define the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the universe), and names referring to prophets of The Bible (Zeke is short for Ezekiel; Delilah Profit may refer to Delilah, from the book of Judges, and Profit referring to prophet).

• The parking lot and football field of Lockhart High School are seen prominently throughout the film.

• Tagline: Six students are about to find out their teachers really are from another planet.

• Several references to Terminator 2: Judgment Day in addition to the most obvious, which is Robert Patrick who played the T-1000 in said film. One is the Elijah Wood character, whose last name is "Conner," which was the last name of both Sarah and John Connor. The character of "John Connor" was played by actor Edward Furlong, the name given to Jon Stewart's character in this film (as Prof. Edward Furlong).

• Several references to John Carpenter's version of The Thing the plot of which was an alien invasion of Earth by beings that make exact replicas of humans to blend in. One is the scene where the characters sit around under the threat of another one who administers a test to see who is human and who might be alien. Another is the decapitation of an alien-human character who then grows legs (in this case tentacles) to move about.

• Group of kids are a homage to make up of the kids in the film The Breakfast Club with a jock, a basketcase/outsider, a princess, a geek and a rebel. It even ends with the jock and the basketcase hooking up.

• It directly references the two book/movie stories that it mimics concerning aliens invading Earth using people as costumes: The Puppet Masters and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

• This was one of the only Robert Rodriguez films not to receive special treatment on DVD. Missing are traditional extras typical for a Robert Rodriguez DVD including "10 Minute Film School", audio commentary and making-of featurettes. Fans attribute this to the fact that this was the only Rodriguez film that he didn't write himself leading many to believe that he only directed it because of a contractual obligation with Miramax.

• This was originally set to be writer Kevin Williamson's directorial debut. He backed out in order to focus on Teaching Mrs. Tingle instead.

• The car Zeke drives is a 1970 Pontiac GTO.

• The absence of deleted scenes or a director's cut version of the film on DVD is especially disappointing to fans since several scenes involving an additional character named Venus, played by Kidada Jones, were shown in previews but cut from the film.

• The characters utter several lines of seemingly prophetic dialogue:
  • Professor Furlong (Jon Stewart) mutters to Nurse Harper (Salma Hayek), "Why don't you just stick a pen in my eye?". Furlong later meets his demise via this method.
  • Marybeth Louise Hutchinson (Laura Harris) says, "I'm feeling a little alien myself today." She later turns out to be the aliens' leader.
  • Zeke Tyler (Josh Hartnett) tells Casey Connor (Elijah Wood), "The only alien at this school is you, man." Later, conversely, Zeke and Casey are the only humans not infected, and Casey is the only one that is in any condition to fight the "mother" alien.

Cast and crew

• Elijah Wood Casey Connor
• Jordana Brewster Delilah Profitt
• Clea DuVall Stokely 'Stokes' Mitchell
• Laura Harris Marybeth Louise Hutchinson
• Josh Hartnett Zeke Tyler
• Shawn Hatosy Stan Rosado
• Salma Hayek Nurse Rosa Harper
• Famke Janssen Miss Elizabeth Burke
• Bebe Neuwirth Principal Valerie Drake
• Robert Patrick Coach Joe Willis
• Usher Raymond Gabe Santora
• Jon Stewart Professor Furlong
• Piper Laurie Mrs. Karen Olson

'Crew'

• Director Robert Rodríguez
• Writer (s) David Wechter, Bruce Kimmel
• Screenplay Kevin Williamson

Soundtrack listings

1. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) - Class of '99
2. The Kids Aren't Alright - The Offspring
3. I'm Eighteen - Creed
4. Helpless - D Generation
5. School's Out - Soul Asylum
6. Medication - Garbage
7. Haunting Me - Stabbing Westward
8. Maybe Someday - Flick
9. Resuscitation - Sheryl Crow
10. It's Over Now - Neve
11. Changes - Shawn Mullins
12. Stay Young - Oasis
13. Another Brick In The Wall - Class of '99

Filming locations

The Faculty takes place in fictional Herrington, Ohio but was filmed at the following locations:

• Austin, Texas
• Dallas, Texas
• Lockhart, Texas

External link

• The Faculty at IMDb