December 1998  NewCity Chicago

"The Faculty" is no less entertaining than Kevin Williamson's first stab at screenwriting, "Scream" - but from these quarters, that's faint praise. Williamson tests our pop cultural literacy (and patience) in this retrofit of 1955's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." (This time out, the pods are teaching high school). "Scream's" self-aware suspense and chase scenes are replaced with sci-fi paranoia; the fear of being attacked while oblivious friends party nearby is replaced by the less common fear of being infested through the ear canal by slimy, sucking worms that wriggle beneath the skin like a bad case of acne.

 But while "Scream" won cheers for acknowledging the genre's stalking-rape-punishment fantasy, "The Faculty," directed by Robert Rodriguez, simply underlines science fiction's recurrent suspicion that girls are sexually predatory aliens. Potentially inventive notions are realized as blandly as possible, and much remains more inexplicable than unexplained. Why is the school so ridiculously decrepit, as if someone sandblasted the walls with coffee? What's the logic behind starting things off with the faculty in the first place?

Williamson's films are hard to take seriously because they don't take themselves seriously, their gimmick of assaulting you with references is far too distracting, and judging from the half-heartedness of "The Faculty," the gimmick's grown stale. (Ellen Fox)