The Faculty (1998)

I was a fan of Robert Rodriguez from the very beginning. It seemed like El Mariachi (famously filmed on a budget of less than $10,000) and Desperado came barreling out of nowhere, and he showed a knack for cheesy, gory horror in From Dusk Till Dawn which was easily one of my favorite movies of the 90s. With that kind of career trajectory, where does one go? If you're most people talking about Rodriguez and The Faculty, you'd probably say it was all downhill after that.

First is the story. Have you seen any of the different versions of Invasion of the Body Snatcher? Well this is yet another. Except with high schoolers who do drugs and have crushes on their teachers. Who knows what possessed Rodriguez to direct this sort of rehash when his previous work was so original and daring.

Next is the dialog, the cinematograpy, the CGI... yes it would be easy to totally dog this movie for being a shit-storm of clichés. Except here's the thing:

I love watching this movie.

Part of it is seeing Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett, Clea DuVall, and Jon Stewart be so... young. Part of it is watching Usher try to act... and doing a pretty bang-up job. Part of it is me being glued to the screen waiting for Famke Janssen to come back on. But mostly it's my theory that Rodriguez is giving a big middle finger to expectations and creating an experience that is stupidly fun. His homage, as most of his good movies are, to a simpler time of storytelling.