It is that time of the week again and I am still feeling that 2016 new year hangover. Fear not, I will be going to the movies soon so I can waste my time with some of October and the Oscar’s dumping ground that is January. But for now, I will dig something out of the vaults to give it a little bit of nostalgic talk. Whenever I came up with the ‘From the Vault’ reviews, I always wanted this to not just be my filler reviews where I just talk about some random ass movies. Whenever I brought something out of the vault, I did want a legitimate reason to discuss it. Whether or not this was to take a second look at a movie that received criticism it did not deserve or a look at a bygone age and the movies that represented it. So today, I want to bring up the 1990’s and more importantly, 1990’s horror movies. The 90’s were a weird time. After the cocaine comedown of the 80’s, the 90’s became a time of rampant cynicism. It was seen in movies, television, culture. The idea of flaunting the establishment and horrific nihilism was the mainstay of our culture. This was reflected in our cinema as well. You see this, ‘fuck the past, they didn’t understand how the world works’ type of attitude popped up a lot when it came to movies. Particularly one that had a pro 90’s grunge look to it.

Movies like Wes Craven’s Scream were a perfect example of this. It was a type of filmmaking that seemed to poke fun at the tropes of the past in an irreverent sort of way. Basically saying that all horror movies had certain rules that needed to be abided and that if you followed them then you would be able to survive a horror movie. Many movies liked to look back at the past with a sort ‘anything you can do, we can do better’ type of mentality. It was certainly a product of its time and dependent upon who you talk to, is either a solid part of 90’s cinema or a much appreciated end to a terrible movie trope.

I find it interesting that it is Scream that receive the majority of derision from critics of this type of 90’s movie making when there are certainly much worse culprits out there. I guess it does help to be the most well known, even if you aren’t the worst culprit. But today, I would like to bring to light the Robert Rodriguez movie, The Faculty.

One of the more forgotten movies of the 90’s, The Faculty is the quintessential movie that says ‘Yeah, we are the 90’s and we do stuff better than the past.’ What is basically just a recreating of Invasion of the Body Snatchers down to the point that they directly reference it in the film, the movie is a decent creation but ultimately a poorly aged execution. Continue reading “From the Vaults: The Faculty” →