‘The Faculty’: Teen Josh Hartnett Leads a Stacked Cast When Aliens Invade High School in 1998
On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.
This September, we’re celebrating Back to School Night with four midnight movies that aren’t just academically themed but also teach the lessons essential to understanding this school of cinema.
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First, read the spoiler-free bait — a weird and wonderful pick from any time in film and why we think it’s worth memorializing. After you’ve watched the movie, come back for the bite — a breakdown of all the spoiler-y moments you’d want to unpack when exiting a theater.
The Bait: This Whole “Midnight Movie” Thing? It’s a Trap
Robert Rodriguez made his name on the candy-colored “Spy Kids” and the graphic novel-inspired “Sin City,” but you can see the director’s fingerprints (thumb-thumb-prints?) all over his earlier teen horror-comedy “The Faculty.”
This week’s IndieWire After Dark was written by “Scream” genius Kevin Williamson. It’s an outrageously maligned sci-fi scramble from 1998 about aliens invading a high school in Ohio. A hybrid concept mixing coming-of-age humor with extraterrestrial terror (OK, “terror” might be a stretch…), this throwback could have just as well been named “Invasion of the Student Body Snatchers” or “10 Things I Hate About Semi-Aquatic Interlopers.”
The script goes all over the place and the film was actually shot in Texas, but it’s got a lot going for fans of Rodriguez’s signature style. The filmmaker is forgotten too often these days and “The Faculty” wears the inventiveness that helped him debut with the shoestring indie “El Mariachi” like bright team colors. That includes a practically done pencil stab through the hand in the first act that fits this month’s Back to School Night theme to a Ticonderoga “t.” Plus, there are some very thirsty teachers that grow into a squid-like staff resembling an army of more bodacious, tentacle-having xenomorphs.
Beyond the filmmaker, “The Faculty” offers star-studded credits that would justify the release of a collector’s edition yearbook. After a summer that included M. Night Shyamalan’s “Trap,” a teenage Josh Hartnett as Zeke Tyler, the coolest caffeine-snorting smart kid you know, recommends it first. New girl Marybeth (Laura Harris) has a bit of a crush on Zeke, but he’s got this bizarre psychosexual thing going on with English teacher Miss Burke (Famke Janssen) too. As the aliens take over, she’s transformed intoan interstellar seductress who could be the red dress-wearing cousin to Zuul from “Ghostbusters.”
That love triangle proves the most interesting in “The Faculty,” even as various romantic trysts collide with telepathic parasites steadily taking over the school, educators first. When Principal Drake (Bebe Neuwirth, looking like Bettie Page) thinks domineering Coach Willis (Robert Patrick) is drunk and taking a pass at her one night, she tells him to sleep it off. He subsequently attacks and absorbs her into the alien hive mind he’s already a part of as an emotionless vector for making threats with a smile. There’s a queen alien hiding somewhere in the school too. Is she single?
Nurse Harper (Salma Hayek, cute and nerdy!) is too busy dealing with a bad cold to realize science teacher Mr. Furlong (Jon Stewart) likes her. And ol’ Furlong is too busy obsessing about Nurse Harper to realize he’s got an alien multiplying in a fishtank back in his classroom. Nerdy photographer Casey (Elijah Wood) discovers a strange creature in a puddle on the football field and brings it the science lab and school paper, but wannabe reporter Delilah (Jordana Brewster, making her film debut) could care less. As head cheerleader too, she’s more concerned about her football star boyfriend Stan’s (Shawn Hatosy) plan to quit the team. His pal Gabe (freakin’ Usher) knows about the animal thing but with playoffs on the line feels about the same as Delilah.
The ridiculously stacked class of “The Faculty” continues from there with Oscar winner Piper Laurie appearing as drama teacher Mrs. Olsen. And Clea DuVall is in the most Clea DuVall role ever as the interminably moody Stokely. She’s not a lesbian, she just pretends she’s one so the popular girls won’t harass her. Oh, you’re offering her your pity? Gee, thanks, she’ll smudge it on like eyeliner and go back to watching B-movies, loser.
Consistently fun if not exactly well constructed, Rodriguez’s big swing premiered on Christmas Day and did well enough at the box office. Critics weren’t such big fans and yet, its cult following is still symbiotic strong. A forgotten treasure worth rehydrating, this variation on some very ’90s themes offers a great excuse to dig into the extensive Hollywood history that can come from a single, lesser-known title. It’s also masterclass in constructing an unfathomably messy high school dating scene — and reining it in by the rules of sci-fi universe teaching the lessons of the greats.
“The Faculty” is now streaming on Paramount+. It’s also available to rent and buy with VOD.
IndieWire After Dark publishes midnight movie recommendations every Friday night at 9:30 p.m. ET. Read more of our deranged suggestions…
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