The Faculty is a 2018 American sci-fi teen body horror film written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein and serves as a modern reimagining of Robert Rodriguez's 1998 cult horror thriller, The Faculty.
The film was produced by Jason Blum, Bill Block and Kevin Williamson who wrote the original film.
The film stars Chandler Riggs, Andi Matichak, Bella Thorne, Katie Aselton, Josh Brolin, Jessica Chastain, John Krasinski, Graham Phillips, Abigail Breslin, Joel Courtney, Sally Field, Kathleen Turner, Gina Rodriguez, Bill Hader, James Ransone, Molly Ringwald, Sydney Park and Shameik Moore. The film features a special appearance of cast members of the original film.
The film deals with a group of teenagers suspecting their teachers at their school are aliens after bizzare occurances involving an extra terrestial.
The film was distributed by Miramax, Blumhouse Productions and Netflix and was released on July 21st, 2018. The film was favorably embraced by critics and viewers alike for it's nostalgic elements, performances, writing and for it's callbacks to the original 1998 film while adding some elements of body horror to the material.
Plot
The film opens up at Herrington High School in Ohio where a vicious schoolyard fight is underway between a student and another named Tina Danhausen while a builied photographer for the school newspaper, Casey Conner takes a picture of the fight. The fight is then broken up by the intimidating gym teacher Joe Willis who sends the two bickering girls the principal's office. Tina and the other girl, Stokely Mitchell are then given an after school detention by the school's frustrated principal, Valarie Drake.
When school lets out, the girls spend detention with drama teacher Karen Olsen writing an essay as punishment. After awhile, Karen leaves to attend a staff meeting with Valerie regarding the school budget. After the meeting ends, Karen forgets to send Stokely and Tina home and heads back to the library but she gets attacked by an unseen force along the way.
Back at the library, Stokely and Tina argue about the fight and the reason behind the scuffle with Tina starting a rumor about Stokely being a lesbian to which Stokely hotly denies. Shortly after, Mrs. Olsen returns from the meeting seemingly unharmed and emotionless and sends Stokely home, which confuses Tina. When Tina asks about Mrs. Olsen's well-being, Mrs. Olsen suddenly stabs Tina to death with a pair of scissors emotionlessly as veins suddenly bulge from her skin.
Mrs. Olsen senses someone entering the school and finds Principal Drake entering her office due to forgetting her keys before ambushing her by stabbing the scissors through her hands which leads to a lengthy chase through the halls. Cornered in the school's art room, Principal Drake knocks out Mrs. Olsen as she erratically attacks her with the scissors. With Mrs. Olsen knocked out, Principal Drake attempts to flee but runs into Coach Willis who emotionlessly kills her with a paper slicer.
The next day, Casey delivers the pictures to the vain Delilah Profitt who is the editor in chief of the school newspaper and also a cheerleader. After delivering the pictures, Casey gets assaulted by Stokely for taking the picture and allegedly making a video of the fight on Youtube which Casey denies doing. Meanwhile in English Class, Mrs. Elizabeth Burke introduces a new student from Atlanta named Marybeth Louise Hutchinson who quickly makes friends with Stokely, much to her annoyance. She also falls for the charming but rebellious Zeke Tyler who is repeating his senior year and is selling illegal items including a homemade drug consisting of caffine among others.
Later on in the day, Casey finds a small worm-like creature on the football field and takes it to biology teacher Edward Furlong who labels it a mesozoan. Meanwhile, Delilah's verbally mistreated boyfriend Stan Rosado plans on quitting the football team due to Coach Willis's poor treatment of Stan and he also plans to dump Delilah after years of verbal abuse. While showering in the locker room, Stan is startled by Coach Willis who learns from him that he wants quit the team to which Coach Willis responds in a positive way by letting him go, making Stan confused.
While getting dressed in the locker room, Stan encounters librarian Agnes Brummel who starts to behave erratically by stripping off her clothes and warning him that they want everyone before giving out an inhuman wail as clumps of hair fall off her scalp and tells Casey (who happens to witness the event) to get help. Casey and Stan report the incident to Principal Drake (who is mysteriously alive and well) who tells the boys that Mrs. Brummel had a lot of heath problems and she was sent home shortly after the incident. During the conversation, Casey looks out the window to see Coach Willis standing in the football field stark naked with the sprinklers on.
After school, Mr Furlong is packing up his bags to go home until he sees the creature he was studying on has grown into a tentacled monstrosity. Shocked, he tries to study the fully grown creature but the creature breaks out of the fish tank and hurls Mr. Furlong across the room with it's tentacles. Mr. Furlong tries to escape but the creature intercepts him and whips it's tentacle down his throat, choking him to death before it enters his body through his open mouth.
Meanwhile, Delilah finds out that Stan is planning on dumping her and is furious with him. She and Stan get into an heated fight over him quitting football in favor of academics and the fact that Stan wants to end their relationship with him screaming at her saying that she was mean and rotten to her and he's had enough. Saddened and livid, Delilah storms off and finds Casey leaving Social Studies and takes him to the vacant faculty lounge, hoping to find a story.
During her heated quest, she vents her anger at Casey saying that her relationship with Stan is over but she hears footsteps approaching the room and her and Casey hide in the faculty closet. While in hiding, they witness Ms. Olsen and Coach Willis attacking the school nurse Rosa Harper when she enters the room for her purse. Coach Willis pins Nurse Harper to the floor and regurgitates several monstrous tentacles, attempting to force one of them into her ear but is stopped by Delilah who screams in horror upon discovering Mrs. Brummel's dried up and shriveled corpse, implying that she died due to extreme malnourishment.
Casey charges out the closet and attacks both Ms. Olsen and Coach Willis with a yard stick while Nurse Harper and Delilah flee the faculty lounge. Casey escapes the school with Coach Willis in hot pursuit but the latter was intercepted by the social studies teacher John Tate who Coach Willis infects with one of the tentacles. Back inside the school, Nurse Harper and Delilah hide in the biology lab where they discover the shattered fish tank and a huge emerald green cocoon only a few feet away from the women. The two women manage to evade Ms. Olsen as she searches for them to no avail.
Once the coast is clear, Delilah and Nurse Harper begin to leave the room but the cocoon they discovered hatches to reveal a naked Mr. Furlong who stumbles towards them and colapses to the floor. As Nurse Harper tries to help him, Mr. Furlong belts out an inhuman screech as a ghastly bright green tentacle shoots out of his mouth and forces itself down Nurse Harper's throat, infecting her almost immediately.
Delilah flees only to run into Principal Drake who calms her down as Delilah explains the situation to her. Principal Drake then takes Delilah to her office where Delilah discovers that Principal Drake's eyes are emerald green just like the cocoon she saw earlier. Delilah, now beyond terrified, tries to leave the room but is ambushed by the now infected Mr. Furlong and Nurse Harper who presumably infect her.
Later that night at Casey's house, Casey gets grounded by his parents who think their son is on drugs after Casey tells them about the attack at the school. Later on in the middle of the night, Casey begins to worry about Delilah and tries texting or calling her only to find out that his parents had already suspended his phone service. Livid and out of options, Casey tries to run away to find her but only to be surprised by Delilah, who crawls into his window and tells him that she escaped the school.
Relieved that she made it out of the school, Casey and Delilah begin to have sex but during intercourse, tentacles sprout from her breasts and strangle Casey who tries to scream for help but to no avail. Delilah then shoots a tentacle out of her mouth and infects Casey but this turns out to be a dream as Casey wakes up screaming the next morning.
Early the next morning, Miss Burke arrives at the school the next morning to find Mr. Furlong in the faculty lounge chugging down water. After some discussion of Zeke selling illegal drugs to the students, Mr. Furlong and Miss Burke give into their feelings and have sex only for Miss Burke to get infected by a tentacle during intercourse. Hours later, Casey arrives at school and runs into Delilah, who seemingly survived her ordeal with Principal Drake, Mr. Furlong and Nurse Harper begins to act strange and passive due to the events of the attack.
Throughout the day, students are called into the office for a strange purpose which makes Stokely suspicious and Casey beyond terrified. The two meet in the library and discuss the strange activity of the teachers with Stokely mentioning that Mr. Tate had been acting weird lately and Casey tells her the events of yesterday in full detail before concluding that their teachers are taken over by aliens.
Meanwhile, Zeke and Marybeth continue to bond throughout the day and they have a run in with a recently infected Miss Harper who snaps at Zeke who is threatened with expulsion for his illegal activities around the school grounds. Back inside, Stokely, Casey and Delilah along with Stan and his friend Gabe Santora have a meeting in the biology room, which was cleaned up from the events of the previous day. Delilah, Casey and Stokely tell Stan and Gabe about Casey's theory about the school taken over by aliens to which the two boys find as a joke.
Somewhere in the school, Zeke and Marybeth head into the supply closet from the science lab where Zeke grabs ingredients for the drugs he sells. Zeke and Marybeth both give into their feelings and begin to make out. On the verge of having sex, they are caught by Mr. Furlong who escorts them out of the supply office only to attack them. As Zeke and Marybeth flee, Mr. Furlong suddenly and slowly transforms into a multi-tentacled monster similar to the one that attacked him the previous day who chases after them.
Back in the biology room, Stan and Gabe are arguing with Delilah, Casey and Stokely over the theory being a lie until Zeke and Marybeth burst into the room, shaken from the attack from Mr. Furlong. As they attempt to explain the situation, the creature that was once Mr. Furlong breaks into the room and attacks the kids, hurling Zeke across the room and infecting Gabe. Thinking quickly, Zeke uses the drugs he usually sells and jams it into the monster's abdomen, killing it. After a moment of relief, Gabe suddenly attacks the others and his arm turns into a tentacle and attempts to infect Stokely but Zeke jams the pen filled with his drugs into Gabe's eye, killing him.
They leave the classroom in shaken terror after they find the dead body of the creature that Zeke killed transformed back into Mr. Furlong. The group heads to Zeke's house where they found out that the aliens controlling the teachers live on water to survive and the drugs that Zeke makes kills them by drying them out. This causes Casey to remember a similar but larger alien that he snapped a picture of after taking pictures of the fight between Tina and Stokely and shows it to the others. Zeke then conducts a drug test to see if everyone is infected with successful results.
As everyone starts to become high by Zeke's drug, Delilah suddenly goes into a spasm and her face splits open to reveal a monstrous alien face, revealing her to be infected and that Mr. Furlong and Nurse Harper have indeed infected her. She transforms into her alien form and destroys some of the equipments for Zeke's drugs before being stabbed through the throat by the pen wielding Stokely. This kills the transformed Delilah and the drug dries out her body like Zeke predicted. As a devastated Stan grieves over her death, Stokely takes another look at the picture of the alien and is convinced that the creature is the alien queen.
Suspecting that Principal Drake is the alien queen, Casey brings up the topic that Delilah had been planning a homecoming dance for the school with Stokely adding if they kill the alien queen, it will turn everyone who is infected back to normal. As night falls, they return to the school where the homecoming dance is underway. Upon endering the school, they see that the faculty is infecting more students by lacing the punch bowl with extraterrestrial parasites. As they hide in the biology lab to talk stragedy, Principal Drake catches them and attempts to escort them out of the building but is knocked out by Casey.
She wakes up to find herself in the school's locker room where the kids attempt to interrogate her about the invasion on the school which Principal Drake knows nothing about. When the interrogation fails, Casey tries to inject the drug into her but his parents appear and try to take him home for more punishment. As Zeke and the others try to stop them, a tentacle suddenly whips out of nowhere and wraps around Stan's neck, strangling him.
Cast
- Chandler Riggs as Zeke Tyler
- Andi Matichak as Delilah Profitt
- Joel Courtney as Casey Connor
- Bella Thorne as Stokely "Stokes" Mitchell
- Graham Phillips as Stan Rosado
- Abigail Breslin as Marybeth Louise Hutchinson
- John Krasinski as Professor Edward Furlong
- Kathleen Turner as Mrs. Karen Olson
- Jessica Chastain as Mrs. Elizabeth Burke
- Katie Aselton as Principal Valerie Drake
- Josh Brolin as Coach Joe Willis
- Gina Rodriguez as Nurse Rosa Harper
- Sally Field as Mrs. Agnes Brummel
- James Ransone as Mr. John Tate
- Shameik Moore as Gabe Santora
- Sydney Park as Tina Danhausen
- Bill Hader as Frank Connor
- Molly Ringwald as Mrs. Connor
Trivia
- Development on the film began in 2014 with The Weinstien Company distributing the film with their Dimension Films branch with Adam Alleca developing the script with Daniel Stamm attacted to direct but the film languished into development hell when The Weinstein Company filed for bankrupcy due to sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstien. The project was then greenlit when Miramax and Netflix took the rights of The Faculty from The Weinstien Company and set the remake on a July 21st, 2018 release date.
- Norman Reedus and Vin Diesel were considered for the role of Coach Joe Willis.
- Isabela Moner and Anya Taylor Joy auditioned for the roles of Delilah Profitt and Marybeth Louise Hutchinson.
- While developing a reboot to The Lost Boys (1987) for Warner Bros., John Francis Daley and Johnathan Goldstein delevolped the screenplay for The Faculty after they watched the original film. Goldstein stated in an interview: "The Faculty was one of those 90's teen horror thrillers that was somewhat overlooked or underappreciated over the years and when John and i watched the film on VHS, we can't help but fall in love with it. Sure the film can be smart, scary and pretty much ahead of it's time but it was a blast to watch. John and i decided to develop the script with a very different approach when we heard that Miramax and Netflix were in negotiations for a remake and they were impressed with our script and called it nostalgic but extremely scary and gut wrenching."
- Nina Dobrev was originally cast as Delilah Profitt but she dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with The Vampire Diaries.
- Kevin Williamson came on board the project after viewing the script as "A Cronenbergian gorefest that oozes with wit, nostalgia and respect for the original movie."
- Victoria Justice, Saxon Sharbino and Katelyn Nacon were considered for the role of Delilah Profitt
- Elijah Wood was approached by Kevin Williamson to reprise his role of Casey Conner but he refused and opted to do a cameo instead.
- Julia Roberts and Lake Bell were strong contenders for the role of Principal Valerie Drake.
- Judy Greer was originally cast as Miss Elizabeth Burke but she dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with Blumhouse's Halloween (2018).
- Logan Miller and Kenton Duty auditioned for the role of Zeke Tyler.
- Isabelle Fuhrman, Joey King and Bailee Madison were considered for the role of Stokely "Stokes" Mitchell.
- Dennis Quaid and Nichoals Cage were strong contenders for the role of Coach Joe Willis.
- Lin Shaye was at one point attached to play Mrs. Karen Olsen but she dropped out due to finding the script to gross for her liking.
- The Faculty received favorable reviews from critics and viewers alike for it's developed plot, updates on the original movie, nostalgia, characters and also for it's performances along with it's homages to classic body horror films. The film was a marginal improvement over it's 1998 predecessor and was left with a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. The site's consensus reads, "An improvement over 1998 original, The Faculty soldiers on with razor sharp black humor, scares, laughs and splashes of gory body horror in it's nostalgic arsenal with some terrific performances to date."
- Emma Kenney was offered the role of Stokely "Stokes" Mitchell but she turned it down due to commitments to the revived ABC sitcom, Roseanne.
- Danielle Harris was considered for the role of Principal Valerie Drake.
- Tye Sheridan, Cameron Boyce and Colin Ford were considered for the role of Stan Rosado.
- Katie Aselton was offered the role Miss Elizabeth Burke but opted to play Principal Valerie Drake instead.
- The film premiered at the 2018 South By Southwest film festival on March 23rd, 2018 to a very positive audience reaction.
- The film was filmed in Lockhhart, Texas where the original film was shot. Filming took place from November 19th, 2017 to January 31st, 2018.
- Austin Abrams and Corey Fogelmanis auditioned for the role of Casey Connor.
- Juliette Lewis was nearly cast as Principal Valerie Drake.
The Reviews of the original cast members of The Faculty (1998)
- The original cast members of The Faculty who played the six main characters voiced their opinion on the remake shorlty after it's release on Netflix:
- Elijah Wood (Casey Connor): It has been ten years since the original film was released and i had an awesome time on set at that time back in the 90's. As for this remake, it still has the heart of the original 1998 cult classic along with it's humor, wit and cleverness but it was comepletly different and more up to date. Aside from all of that, it was amazing to see the new Faculty film released on Neflix for a new generation and i loved every minute of it.
- Jordana Brewster (Delilah Profitt): I don't know why Hollywood wants to remake The Faculty to spite fans of the movie but they did a marvelous job on the material. I was working on Random Acts Of Violence when i heard that Dimension Films was remaking The Faculty, i was pretty angry at first due to some horror remake not being as good as the original but i realized that Dimension Films was filing for bankruptcy due to Harvey Weinstein's allegations of sexual misconduct with women. The remake was in very good hands with Neflix and Miramax and they showed me the rough cut of the film and i was blown away. Everything about the remake was almost completely different from the original Faculty and even showed the scene where my character now played by Andi Matichak being attacked in the faculty lounge closet by Coach Willis now played by Josh Brolin. That scene in particular was shown in TV Spots of the original movie. The remake was awesome, more gruesome and more smart than the original and shows that some horror remakes can be good and i loved it.
- Josh Hartnett (Zeke Tyler): The Faculty to me was a trip down memory lane for me since it was my second film worked on with Dimension Films after Halloween H20. Now that it's 20 years old, they're doing a remake of The Faculty and i was a little shocked that they were doing a remake of it. When Kevin Williamson called me about the remake, I came to the set of the remake and when discussed the script with me, I was pleasantly surprised when i found out that Blumhouse, Netflix and Miramax were behind the scenes. I was also surprised when i met the cast of the remake especially Chandler Riggs who just came off of The Walking Dead. When Kevin Williamson showed me the script, i wasn't expecting a body horror tinged version of The Faculty or let alone a complete different vision. When i saw the rough cut with Jordana Brewster, I was very impressed but grossed out at times on how the film turned out and the parts i loved most was the ending when me and my old cast members doing a cameo and the part where John Krasinski's character gets infected by the alien. The Faculty sure has changed in the production process but it was wonderful