Format: DVD from Peru Public Library through interlibrary loan on basement television.
Some tropes are bulletproof enough that they can take a lot of different forms. The basic story behind The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, both the Jack Finney novel and the various incarnations of the movie, are one such trope. The Faculty, produced in the late ‘90s, is one such version. This is very clearly a take on the idea of pod people, and more specifically the idea of aliens coming to Earth and taking over the bodies and minds of the people in a small town with an eye toward grander conquest. In fact, as should be expected, The Faculty explicitly references Finney’s work, albeit incorrectly (but we’ll get to that later).
I’m going to assume that you at least know the broad strokes of the basic story. Alien critters arrive on Earth and, through one means or another, start to take over, control, or otherwise dominate the minds and bodies of the locals. We’re more or less led to suspect that high school football coach Willis (Robert Patrick) is the first victim. He quickly infects fellow teacher Karen Olson (Piper Laurie), and the pair then turn the school principal (Bebe Neuwirth).
