The Faculty Review
Essentially an attempt to do for the science-fiction/thriller genre what the author had done for the slasher film with 1996's Scream, Kevin_Williamson's The Faculty raised the question of where to draw the line between homage and theft. Lifting its plot directly from Jack_Finney's -The Body Snatchers and the films it inspired, The Faculty ostensibly gets itself off the hook by mentioning Finney's story in the film itself. Was it post-modernism or plagiarism? Regardless, with The Faculty, Williamson and director Robert_Rodriguez craft a tight, suspenseful, consistently entertaining (up to a ludicrous finale), and subversive thriller. It's this last quality that most reviews at the time seemed to overlook. The Body Snatchers formula makes a natural fit for the film's conformity-mad high school setting and Williamson and Rodriguez make the most of pitting a band of outsiders, however photogenic and stylishly clad, against the personality-sapping forces of evil. Buried within you'll also find a not-particularly-subtle pro-drug message, an unusually unwholesome element which is at least at odds with the squeaky-clean images of high school put forth by the era's wave of teen films (She's_All_That, et al.). Keith Phipps, Rovi
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