[Film Review] Scream (1996) and The Faculty (1998)

Two notable 1990s high-school slashers scribed by Kevin Williamson, Wes Craven’s SCREAM is a seminal genre-bender that successfully entrains a still-going-strong franchise (5 sequels and counting plus a three-season anthology television series) and Robert Rodriguez’s THE FACULTY is a retrofitted upgrade on INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS with a deferential homage to John Hughes’s THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985).

SCREAM commences with a now-iconic opening gambit that harks back Craven’s viscerally grisly track record since his feature debut THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972), in which Drew Barrymore’s Casey meets a gruesome death in an initially seemingly harmless phone prank. The gore on show takes audience aback and kick-start the adrenaline rush for the main course. However, in retrospect, the first kill also implicitly spills the beans of the plurality of its perpetrators as it is improbable such enormity can be effected by one single person.

However, once the film starts rolling around our final girl Sidney Prescott (an incredibly ballsy and unfazed Campbell), Craven tweaks the dread spread with something of a tonal shift. With Sidney and her friend Tatum (a feisty McGowan) in a resilient fighting mode, the “ghostface” killer loses the menacing omnipresence so intrinsically linked to the masked Michael Myers in John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN (1978), sometimes, he even seems ridiculously clodhopping in action. A subplot about a meet-cute between career-driven journalist Gale Weathers (Cox, who is relentlessly assertive and knows how to take a shiner) and goofy deputy sheriff Dewey Riley (Arquette, what a babe!) is another efficacious comic relief. Ergo, by diffusing these terror-inducing elements and the graphic goriness, SCREAM cleverly resuscitates a second wind to the stock genre, a teen horror can be both funny and scary, and it hits the jackpot!

Also, the self-reference to past classic horror pictures is a running gag throughout, acted out mostly by Jamie Kennedy’s Randy, a horror film zealot, whose affinity for HALLOWEEN (1978) is nearly death-defying. Williamson’s stagecraft mines a few surprises along the way, including the reveal of the psychos. A viewer should always remember the one truism “suspicious of the least suspected”. Thematically, the script niftily touches on a young girl’s intimacy issue and the daunting insecurity of being raped, counterpointed by the callousness and callowness of the opposite sex, Skeet Ulrich’s Billy Loomis is a fetching sleaze in disguise. It is not for nothing that SCREAM is able to stand out from the crowd, although its tongue-in-cheek overtone can slip into facetiousness at short notice.

THE FACULTY is more derivative in comparison, which also opens with a chilling assault, heightened by Robert Patrick knowingly parodying his role T-1000 in James Cameron’s TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (1991), and a Janus-faced Piper Laurie amping up her stone-cold gelidity in Brian De Palma’s CARRIE (1976).

Witnessing first-hand of the staff of their school faculty being infected and mind-controlled by a type of alien parasite, 6 high schoolers (in a THE BREAKFAST CLUB style plus an additional newcomer) must race against time to save their town before it is too late. Not only they are pursued by those infected, they must also overcome the internecine paranoia and find out who among themselves has already been a host of the parasites. The template is over-familiar and the solution is over-simplified - killing the alien Queen, everything will revert back to normalcy. So it is really silly that the Queen just voluntarily manifests herself when everyone is none the wiser who she should be.

Also, by earmarking the dehydrating drug as the specie’s kryptonite, THE FACULTY comports itself as a shameless pedlar of drug snorting, a pernicious gesture belies the ubiquity of drug abuse in USA and sends an insidious message to the film’s target audience.

Among the young cast, Wood’s bullied pipsqueak Casey is the underdog hero, who is rewarded with the pretty cheerleader Delilah (Brewster), after the latter ditching her jock boyfriend Stan (Hatosy), who gives up playing football and in turn, is taken by DuVall’s Stokely, a straight girl using the queer label to keep unwanted attention at bay, a regressive and regrettable contrivance can pass muster anymore. Then, there is Hartnett’s Zeke, a paradox of small crime and high intellect, rather a blue-sky invention than a credible character. However, that doesn’t stop him from being the best in show, especially when he is faced with Janssen’s Miss Burke, whose from-mousy-to-bossy about-face accentuates his cool-guy appeal and a wry resignation.

Strictly speaking, THE FACULTY leans more towards Sci-Fi than horror, and considerable effort and craft has been invested to actualize the surreal elements, like the alien queen’s huge conformation, Miss Burke’s walking head, and a swift chase scene in the natatorium. But as if in awe of its own inspo, Rodriguez’s youthful rebellion is arresting to watch, but too jejune to pack a punch after the fact, even Williamson’s magic potion of levity fails to elevate it from mediocrity.

referential entries: John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN (1978, 6.8/10), THE THING (1982, 7.3/10); Philip Kaufman’s INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978, 7.7/10); Robert Rodriguez’s ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (2019, 7.1/10).

Title: Scream

Year: 1996

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Horror, Mystery

Director: Wes Craven

Screenwriter: Kevin Williamson

Music: Marco Beltrami

Cinematography: Mark Irwin

Editor: Patrick Lussier

Cast:

Neve Campbell

Courteney Cox

David Arquette

Skeet Ulrich

Matthew Lillard

Rose McGowan

Jamie Kennedy

W. Earl Brown

Drew Barrymore

Live Schreiber

Joseph Whipp

Henry Winkler

Lawrence Hecht

Linda Blair

Rating: 7.5/10

Title: The Faculty

Year: 1998

Country: USA, Mexico

Language: English

Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi, Mystery

Director/Editor: Robert Rodriguez

Screenwriter: Kevin Williamson

Based on the story by David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel

Music: Marco Beltrami

Cinematography: Enrique Chediak

Cast:

Elijah Wood

Josh Hartnett

Clea DuVall

Laura Harris

Shawn Hatosy

Jordana Brewster

Bebe Neuwirth

Robert Patrick

Salma Hayek

Famke Janssen

Piper Laurie

Daniel von Bargen

Jon Stewart

Christopher McDonald

Libby Villari

Usher

Summer Phoenix

Jon Abrahams

Susan Willis

Tina Rodriguez

Harry Jay Knowles

Rating: 6.4/10