Halloween 2022: Day 17

The Faculty

I don’t recall ever hearing about this film, so when I was scrolling through HBO Max and came across a sci-fi horror film written by Kevin Williamson (who famously wrote Scream); starring Clea Duvall, Jordana Brewster, Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett (as Zeke), Famke Janssen, Salma Hayek, Robert Patrick, and Usher; and directed by Robert Rodriguez (who famously directed The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D) I was expecting it to be something so embarrasingly bad that everyone had memory-holed it. It’s not that.

The Faculty is The Breakfast Club meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets (sadly) 90s misogyny and homophobia. There are a lot of ways it could have been better, but overall I enjoyed watching it more than I predicted. It’s nowhere near as good as Scream and Clea Duvall’s character should have been a lesbian, but the scares are effective, the enemy is suitably horrifying, and I won’t hold the fact that Josh Hartnett’s hair is atrocious against him.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S02E06 “Halloween”

“Chaos. I remain, as ever, thy faithful, degenerate son.”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer S04E04 “Fear, Itself”

“I was just thinking about the life of a pumpkin. Grow up in the sun, happily entwined with others, and then someone comes along, cuts you open, and rips your guts out.”