Saturday, August 30, 2008

The Faculty: 3 out of 5 Stars


An instant star was given for the appearance of Mr Krueger, August 30, 2008

Checking out this film came with much hesitation knowing Usher and Josh Hartman were two of the major players. In that awful era when "Scream" and "I Know What you did Last Summer" ruled the box office it appeared like we may have yet another corny high school horror flick with the token black guy (usher) and a gang of pathetic white kids being picked off one by one. However some investigating proved otherwise once many of the reviews seemed to be positive. So all in all it now seemed like we may have an interesting little sci-fi flick on our hands, kind of like the Breakfast Club on acid, and decided to give it a shot.

We start off with a hilarious scene while coach Joe Willis (Robert Patrick aka liquid guy from T-2) is having a huge meltdown at the lacluster performance of his high school squad during practice. He flips some bench over and sends all the kids packing for the day when he starts messing with the sprinkler when he is approached by an unseen character. Later that evening a couple teachers are closing up the school when one forgets her keys and runs back in to be met by coach Joe acting real wierd. He's looking at her with the "I wanna wrestle you so freaking bad face" and she's freaked out. He starts saying wierd stuff then rams a pencil through her hand sending her to run frantically. She winds up getting out locking in coach only to be iced by the teacher she was just walking out with. Now we get the feeling some strange stuff is going down. From here we cut away to the faculty lounge the following day where Mr. Krueger is one of the teachers, which earns an automatic star, accompanied by John Stuart, Selma Hayek, and couple other familiar faces. As they're in there they notice coach chuging down water like he trying to beat an upcoming drug test and wonder what his deal is. As the film rolls on the teachers begin to act more bizarre each day causing the kids to wonder. These kids consist of Zeke Tyler (Josh Hartman), Casey Connor (Elijah Wood), and a few others. Hartman plays an ultra tough druggie and Elijah plays a nerd who gets his ass kicked everyday, which when can only assume was an easy role for him to get used to. While in science teacher John Stuarts class one day they come across some creature that seems to grow in water and can duplicate itself at will. This soon becomes the creatures that are inhabiting inside the teachers causing them to spread this alien virus through the teaching staff and student body. Even Usher turned into one of them and becomes an animal on the football field sending nearly the entire opposing team to the locker room with plenty of injuries. Pretty inpressive from the same guy that created the song You Got it Bad.

So at this point Zeke, Casey, and the other four realize what is going on and discover some of hartmans drugs are the only way to stop these creatures. Apparently they don't do lines of china white on their planet an instantly OD which they are injected with it. This then is how the remaining students try to take down the entire school which is now all alien. One by one people become infected, even a few in their little click leaving only Casey in charge of saving the world. Yeah great, the guy that gets his head stuffed in the toilet everyday is in charge on stopping the invasion. Despite his fruityness he actually comes through and saves the entire world. Also somehow everyone turns back into their normal selves and all become even better then what they were before. Druggie Hartman becomes part of the football team, coach turns back into a non-homicidal lunatic, Elijah becomes the hero and an instant stud, and Krueger goes back to his position at Krueger industrial smoothing.

After viewing this one we were pleasantly suprised. We were expecting the same slasher type crap but got to enjoy a decent sci-fi effort which is always nice. The special effects were even pretty cool as far as the aliens went. Our only gripe was the ending was super B but that is to be expected with flick from that era. Overall The Faculty would be worth checking out if you're in the mood for some sci-fi high school action.

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