There's something very strange going on in The Faculty--a world-shaking case of deja-vu. It's not just that the premise of a sinister plot to turn high school students into obedient robots was already explored in last year's Disturbing Behavior; deconstructionist screen scribe Kevin Williamson, who walked the fine line between homage and outright theft successfully in the two Scream films, stomps that line into a fine paste this time around. The Faculty combines the meticulous teen culture cross-sectioning of The Breakfast Club with cribs from John Carpenter's The Thing, Night of the Living Dead, Aliens, and any number of other creature features. It's a monster movie that couldn't exist without other, better monster movies, which some would argue is the whole raison d'etre of the Williamson oeuvre: trotting out genre conventions in order to revitalize them. Trouble is there's nothing remotely revitalizing about The Faculty, which witlessly regurgitates pop culture quotes like any number of recent Leslie Nielsen projects. Every opportunity for genuine creativity is turned into yet another self-satisfied commentary on how every science-fiction story is a rip-off of every other science-fiction story. The Faculty ends up being just another lame science-fiction film for someone else to satirize later on...and maybe even get it right next time. Not recommended. (S. Renshaw)
The Faculty
(Dimension, 105 min., R, avail. June 15, <B>DVD</B>) 6/21/99
The Faculty
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
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