The Faculty _best_ Jun 2026

The mastermind behind Scream and Dawson’s Creek brought his signature witty, self-aware dialogue.

Upon its release on Christmas Day in 1998, The Faculty received mixed reviews from critics but was a moderate commercial success, grossing over $40 million domestically.

The term "the faculty" represents two very different, but deeply connected, concepts. One is the essential engine of our society, the collective of educators who build the future through teaching, research, and service. The other is a celebrated piece of pop culture, a film that uses the setting of a school to ask fundamental questions about trust, identity, and rebellion.

Realizing their educators have been taken over by parasitic aliens, Casey assembles an unlikely team of survivors: the nihilistic goth Stokely (Clea DuVall), the conflicted football star Stan (Shawn Hatosy), the new Southern transplant Marybeth (Laura Harris), and the rebellious drug-dealer Zeke Tyler (Josh Hartnett). The group soon discovers that the aliens spread via water and that Zeke’s homemade drug—which turns out to be raw, powdered caffeine—acts as a fatal neurotoxin to them. the faculty

The term's usage is not universal. In British, Australian, and New Zealand English, "faculty" often refers to a sub-division of a university, such as the "Faculty of Medicine," which is a group of related academic departments. In these countries, the people we refer to as "faculty" in the U.S. are more commonly called "academics".

Some of the key responsibilities of faculty members include:

While critics in 1998 were somewhat divided, contemporary audiences have embraced the film’s campy energy and sharp writing. It remains a staple of Halloween watchlists and a masterclass in how to execute a high-concept genre mashup. The mastermind behind Scream and Dawson’s Creek brought

This expansion of duties has created significant strain. Studies have found that faculty are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress, with increased workloads and job insecurity contributing to a growing crisis in academic well-being. The situation is particularly acute for faculty at community colleges and regional universities, where resources are often scarce and class sizes large.

as Zeke Tyler, the brilliant but cynical burnout who repeats his senior year and sells bootleg electronics and homemade drugs from his trunk.

At its core, The Faculty is a dark, sci-fi reimagining of John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club . The narrative forces six wildly different high school stereotypes to band together to save humanity: One is the essential engine of our society,

The success of The Faculty lies in its highly unique creative pairing. Kevin Williamson was the definitive voice of 90s youth dialogue. He wrote Scream , I Know What You Did Last Summer , and created Dawson’s Creek . Williamson brought his signature self-aware, fast-talking, hyper-literate teenagers to the script.

Are you a fan of The Faculty? Share your memories of seeing this 90s classic in the comments below.

The path to the screen was as chaotic as the film itself. The original script, written in 1990 by David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel, languished in development hell until after the massive success of Scream in 1996. Miramax’s Bob and Harvey Weinstein bought the script and brought in Scream scribe Kevin Williamson to “hip” up the dialogue and characters.

The film follows a group of high school archetypes who discover that their teachers are being replaced by parasitic aliens.