ON THE TENTH NIGHT OF HALLOWEEN I watched The Faculty (1998), directed by Robert Rodriguez. This is a post-Scream take on the mind-control slugs micro-genre, where snarky teens must battle their parasite-piloted high school teachers. It’s really well-crafted, with clever editing, efficient characterization, and deep genre savvy (including direct callouts to Heinlein’s Puppet Masters). And its cast is stacked. It stars a pre-Frodo Elijah Wood, a pre-Daily Show Jon Stewart, a pre-Jean Grey Famke Janssen, and a post-T2 Robert Patrick. The choice to have the teachers infected first works particularly well, as it leaves the vulnerable teens with no one in authority to believe them. In fact, this aspect could haven been mined for much more interesting psychosocial horror than the superficial if accomplished thrills The Faculty offers. And that’s what prevents this movie from being great rather than just solid: once again the same narrative is retold, albeit juiced up with late 90’s sass, without learning from Cronenberg’s profoundly unnerving innovations in Shivers.
One note though: I have no complaints about the parasite in its larval stage, which Jon Stewart’s biology teacher describes as “mesozoan.” 🤌
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