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The Faculty

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The Faculty
Directed byRobert Rodriguez
Written byStory:
David Wechter
Bruce Kimmel
Screenplay:
Kevin Williamson
Produced byElizabeth Avellan
StarringJosh Hartnett
Elijah Wood
Jordana Brewster
Clea DuVall
Laura Harris
Shawn Hatosy
Robert Patrick
Famke Janssen
Piper Laurie
Bebe Neuwirth
Salma Hayek
Daniel von Bargen
Usher Raymond
Jon Stewart
CinematographyEnrique Chediak
Edited byRobert Rodríguez
Music byMarco Beltrami
Distributed byDimension
Release date
December 25, 1998
Running time
104 minutes
LanguageEnglish
Budget$15,000,000 (estimated)
Box office$40,283,321

The Faculty is a 1998 horror/science-fiction film, written by Kevin Williamson, writer of Scream and its sequel, and directed by Robert Rodriguez, director of Desperado and From Dusk till Dawn. The film stars Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Shawn Hatosy, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Robert Patrick, Bebe Neuwirth, Piper Laurie, Famke Janssen, Usher Raymond, Salma Hayek, and Jon Stewart.

Plot

At Herrington High School, faculty and staff are being taken over by alien parasites. A rag-tag group of six students form a resistance cell. There is Zeke Tyler (Josh Hartnett), a loner 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 during his 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 Northern Schools, who is intelligent and a photographer for the school newspaper, and also has a crush on Delilah; Stokely 'Stokes' Mitchell (Clea DuVall), a female outcast and literary buff who claims to be a lesbian in order to prove her independence from people, though she has a crush on Stan; and Marybeth Louise Hutchinson (Laura Harris), the new girl at school, who came from Atlanta to live with relatives because her parents died in a car crash. She befriends Stokes and 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 one by one for ear inspections, where they are taken over.

Casey figures this out and soon warns the other five. During a meeting, 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 dries out the alien inside of him, as the drug is a diuretic and the aliens require excessive amounts of water to cope with life on Earth.

Thus, they all leave the school, which has become completely infected (the entire student body stares at them), and go to Zeke's house with a sample of the parasite. Stokely speculates that destroying the queen alien will kill all the parasites, without killing their victims. Soon, the group becomes suspicious of each other, each of them citing such actions as Stan's recent shift from football to academics and Casey's sudden courage as potential evidence that they aren't who they say they are. They each take turns snorting the drug to prove that they have not been infected. When Delilah's turn comes, she snorts the drug and parasites crawl under her skin, revealing that she has already been infected. She then destroys most of Zeke's supply of the drug, as well as his equipment for producing it, before escaping. The remaining five, with what is left of the drug, 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. The five send Stan to investigate the field, and Stokeley and Stan share their first kiss. Stan subsequently becomes infected when he goes onto the field. 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 serves as a decoy, Zeke goes to his car. There, he encounters Miss Burke (Famke Janssen). He seemingly kills her, but she survives.

Marybeth reveals herself to be the queen alien; she had escaped snorting the drug by biological trickery. She came to take over Earth as her own planet is dying. She chases Stokely and Casey. Stokely is badly injured, then infected and Zeke is knocked out in the locker room. Casey runs back to the gym area and tricks the alien into following him behind the now-closing bleachers. The machinery traps what used to be Marybeth. Casey jams the last of the drugs into Marybeth's eye, before being infected himself, killing her. With Marybeth dead, Casey's and the rest of the parasites die and the students and teachers all return to normal.

After this, the group shows big changes, including the faculty. Zeke applies his genius to schoolwork and joins the football team (and seems to be dating Miss Burke). Coach Joe Willis is still coaching the football team. Stan and Stokely become a couple and share their second kiss, Delilah and Casey do the same (they share their first kiss).

Casey is more accepted at school (with various papers talking about his extraterrestrial encounter, despite the official denial of the FBI), and Delilah is no longer vindictive. In the background of the final scene, students are seen bullying another student in the same way they picked on Casey. During the credits, it is seen that Mr. Furlong has survived, although missing one of his eyes and some fingers on his right hand.

Cast

Reception

Reviews were mixed, but tended towards the positive. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes tallied thirty-six reviews from critics (with nineteen listed as positive and seventeen listed as negative) to give 'The Faculty' a 53%, calling it a 'rip-off of other sci-fi thrillers'[1]. Metacritic gave 'The Faculty' a score of 61.[2]

The Faculty was viewed on 2,365 screens its opening weekend, debuting at #5 in the US, making $11,633,495.[3] Its eventual domestic gross was $40,283,321.[4]

Soundtrack

Untitled

The score is composed by Marco Beltrami, who had previously scored the teen-slasher-horror film, Scream, as well as Mimic. Both Beltrami's score[5] and songs by various artists used in the film were released as albums. The "music from the motion picture" album features songs by various indie and alternative rock groups.

Track listing

  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 (Part 1)" - Class of '99

Filming locations

The Faculty takes place in fictional Herrington, Ohio but was filmed in Austin, Dallas, and Lockhart, Texas.

DVD release

The Faculty was one of the few 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.

Several scenes involving an additional character named Venus, played by Kidada Jones, were shown in previews but cut from the film.[citation needed]

The film's poster features Usher (who plays Gabe, a minor character), but not Shawn Hatosy (who plays Stan, one of the leads).

References

  1. ^ The Faculty - Consensus: Rip-off of other sci-fi thrillers.
  2. ^ The Faculty: Generally favorable reviews
  3. ^ The Faculty: Box Office / Business
  4. ^ The Faculty (1998)
  5. ^ SoundtrackNet : The Faculty Soundtrack

External links


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