The Faculty

Some of the best sci-fi/alien/horror movies are the ones where you know what the menace is but you don't know who is the hosting victim. Classic examples of this theme are films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Hidden and the excellent The Thing. Although the 1994 remake of Invasion, simply titled Body Snatchers, didn't do much for audiences, the Faculty is a new attempt on the theme with screenwriter Kevin Williamson (Scream series) ringing in the usual high school teen element. You want a touch of style and quality in the film-making? Then let Robert Rodriguez (Desperado, Dusk til Dawn) direct it.

In a small town, with a high school housing a champion football team, nothing seems out of the ordinary until Coach Willis (Robert Patrick, T1000 in T2) goes from a ruthless slave driver to caring 'human' overnight. He's also developed an extreme thirst and is constantly drinking water or standing under sprinklers. Soon, alot of the other faculty members start exhibiting similar character changes which make students Casey (Elijah Wood) and Delilah (Jordana Brewster) curious.

Here's where the truth reveals itself and soon almost the entire school has become 'infected' with this alien symbiotic host. It's up to Casey, Delilah, Zeke (Josh Hartnett), Stan (Shawn Hatosy) and Stokely (Clea Duvall) to find the queen and restore the school to normal. There are more plot holes in here than a loose rabbit could burrow but who cares, I'll leave the quality dinners to the Hyatt and the daily trash to McDonalds. This is your typical wholesome trash with the meal deal coming including extras such as Salma Hayek, Piper Laurie, Bebe Neuwirth and the hilarious Christopher McDonald.

This is yet another great transfer from Village Roadshow to add to their collection given that they are only using a single layer for this movie. The 1.85 anamorphic transfer is totally clean of any video or film noise and only some very, very marginal mpeg artifacting in some select high motion scenes.

As per usual with Village Roadshow, they have provided an excellent balance between the black levels and shadow detail. This movie has a fair few dark environments that need to be reproduced as best they can and it's achieved here with ease. There is also a high contrast ratio that provides excellent dynamics in the image to give background, foreground and intermediate objects a true sense of depth. Color saturation is high with flesh tones true to form.

Sharpness is consistently high with an abundance of detail in the image. This is a surprisingly good transfer given the space utilised. I'm not sure why only a single layer was used but it was used superbly.

Complimenting the video is an entertaining Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix that provides an active audio environment from start to finish. There are a few occasions throughout that provide an abundance of surround activity giving the scene a very eerie aura to it all. Take chapter 20 for example where our heroes are trying to escape through the school grounds and their names are being whispered all around you. Creepy stuff.

Dialogue wise, all is in order. Everything is clearly heard throughout the movie and nothing is drowned out by any of the additional soundtrack. Audio synch is fine, even on my Pioneer 505.

The musical score is your typical 90's contempary MTV teen tunes brought together to sell CD soundtracks but surprisingly is a very good compliment to the feature itself. Only problem here is that they've tampered with the classic Pink Floyd "Brick in the Wall" hit (but Paul can tell you about it in his review).

There's not much more to fit on this disc but there are a number of extras to keep you around once the movie has finished.

• Theatrical Trailer - Ordinary video quality with a 2 channel soundtrack promoting the film to the masses.
• On the Set - Take a few behind the scenes shots and make a short 5 minute compilation feature. Voila.
• Interviews - A bunch of VERY short interviews with the cast, director and writer, somehow all commenting on the director and writer more than the movie itself.
• Hidden Trailer - Not very hidden but it is the last dot on the main menu screen. Selecting it gives you the teaser trailer to Deep Blue Sea.

I enjoyed this movie alot more than the other teen thriller flicks to come out of late, can anyone say Jawbreaker? It's got all the elements Rodriguez used to scare us in Dusk til Dawn and the some with decent special effects to boot.

Watch it at night, grab some popcorn and invite over those friends of yours who break the long jump records when being scared out of their seats. You'll have fun.