Herrington High School is located in Herrington, Ohio. It is your average high school in your average town with your average array of teachers and students. One night, Principal Valerie Drake (Bebe Neuwirth) is leaving the school when she is attacked by the football coach, Coach Joe Willis (Robert Patrick), and the drama teacher, Mrs. Karen Olson (Piper Laurie).
The next day life goes on as normal. The students begin entering the school to start their day. On hand is the local nerd, Casey Connor (Elijah Wood), the resident dyke, Stokely Mitchell (Clea DuVall), football jock, Stan Rosado (Shawn Hatosy), head cheerleader and editor of the student newspaper, Delilah Profitt (Jordana Brewster), local drug dealer, Zeke Tyler (Josh Hartnett) and a new student, Marybeth Louise Hutchinson (Laura Harris). Marybeth is a transplant from Atlanta.
Casey finds an unusual item on the football field. He brings it to his science teacher, Professor Edward Furlong (Jon Stewart). Furlong figures out that it is a living creature and believes that it is a new species of cephalopod parasite called a mesozoan. The creature comes alive in water and begins to replicate. Furlong ends up bitten by the creature. Soon, some of the students begin to see some of the teachers acting strangely. The kids try to get the authorities to investigate, but no one believes them.
Casey believes that the teachers are being controlled by aliens. Stokely, who is an avid science fiction reader, speculates that the teachers have been taken over by alien parasites similar to the pod aliens in the movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” 1956 or “The Puppet Masters” 1994. She also suggests that if they kill the alien queen, the others will die.
When the teachers find out that some of the students know they are aliens, they begin to take over the other teachers and students by inserting an alien parasite into people’s ears. It doesn’t take long for the kids to begin to wonder who is an alien, and who isn’t. When they are attacked by alien Professor Furlong, Zeke kills him by stabbing him with a pen cartridge filled with some of his drugs, the primary ingredient being caffeine, which dehydrates the aliens. The kids go to Zeke’s house to get more of the drug to try to combat the aliens. Their main problem, while trying to avoid the aliens, is to identify who is an alien and which of the aliens is the queen. Their next problem is discovering whether or not anyone among them is really an alien in disguise.
“The Faculty” was released in 1998 and was directed by Robert Rodriguez. It is an American science fiction horror film.
This was really well done. The acting was on par with some interesting character traits and fun dialogue. The aliens were good, slightly reminiscent of Cthulhu but without any wings.
The number of stars, future stars and character actors in this film is rather impressive. It’s kind of like “The Breakfast Club” 1985, horror style. The film is a combination of “Invasion of the Bodysnatchers” 1956. “Invaders from Mars” 1953, and “The Thing” 1982 with a creature straight out of H.P. Lovecraft.
The high school band in the football scene is from Austin High School in Austin, Texas.