7Roulette - THE FACULTY

Listed under the definition of "Formulaic" would be that goofy poster for the movie The Faculty. A group of oddball teens, lead by Josh Hartnett's pumpkin pie haircut, join together amidst an alien takeover. But while the plot may be contrived, and the CGI should be listed among the bottom of the barrel, there's something endearing to it. It's very possible that it's Jon Stewart, or our favorite character actress with questionable sexual orientation, but it holds my interest. It's quite reminiscent of an extended Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode. It's definitely a late 1990s time capsule worth revisiting around spooky season. C+

-Babes

How're they getting all these movies to feel the same? Everyone from Roger Corman to A24 managed to change it up now and then, and I wouldn't mind the repetition of this particular blueprint so much if it didn't already stink. But I will say this is the liveliest outing with the best performances and most interesting characters. It's also joyously clever to introduce the pod people premise into a Goosebumps setting -- or it would be clever if Kevin Williamson could hold back on the self awareness winking for five fucking minutes. (It helps that Clea DuVall is a better actor than Jamie Kennedy.) Something else I noticed (and I'm not even kidding) was that the atmosphere of a hostile and disorganized high school (before the science fiction stuff) is one of the more accurate depictions of that environment in 1998. But for a Robert Rodriguez creature feature steered by KNB FX GROUP there's next to no gore and minimal monsters, and what there is is mostly animation, and while you can feel the budget constraints throughout, nothing stings worse than when the giant cartoon alien is exterminated off camera. I feel like the rest of the movie is strong enough that with some better effects and a few dollars more it would be held in higher regard - not like The Thing because Rodriguez can't do that kinda suspense but more like Evil Dead or even From Dusk Till Dawn for chrissakes. I wanted to call it a "good movie" but instead it has terms and conditions of the more descriptive "better than a Scream movie." B

- Paul