With a resurgence in horror films over the past few years, no doubt thanks to Scream Scriber Kevin Williamson, he also took stab (no pun intended) at a horror/sci-fi combo set in a USA High School.

Initally proposed as KW’s Directing Debut, the honour, if you could call it that, went to El Mariachi’s Robert Rodriguez, with KW only serving as script writer. (Incidentally Williamson went on to director another of his own projects, Teaching Mrs Tingle)

Taking quite a few pages too many from Body Snatchers, ‘The Faculty’ of Herrington High, all of a sudden turn a little weird, starting with the football coach (Robert Patrick). With the sudden desire to quench his everlasting thirst, Coach takes it upon himself to turn the remainder of the faculty consisting of the Principle (Bebe [Cheers’ Lylith] Newmerth), School Nurse Harper ( Rodriguez fav. Salma Heyak), the shy Ms Drake (Famke [GoldenEye] Janssen).

At first, this goes unnoticed by many of the students, bar one, Casey (Elijah Wood). A bit of a loner, and the school punching bag, Casey tries to convince everyone that the teachers are not what they seem. It’s not until most of the teachers and students show signs of odd behaviour does anyone believe poor old Casey, and those who do believe him, are themselves students of the school, namely the drug dealing Zeke (Josh Hartnett), the football captain/jock Stan (Shawn Hatosy), his bitchy girlfriend Delilah (Jordana Brewster), The recluse/swampy Stokley ( Clea DuVall)., and new girl MaryBeth (Laura Harris).

Pretty soon these 6 students take it upon themselves to stop the teachers and save the school from the Alien Invasion [Insert Dramatic Sci-Fi theme of your Choice here]

VIDEO
Presented in it’s original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, this Anamorphic Widescreen Transfer is generally sharp, clean and clear. For the most part Colour Saturation was very good, but at time seemed a tad high.  The Buena Vista Family in the USA apparently use Interpositives (as do New 0Line and Criterion) for most of their source prints, and these can show a push in the reds a tad (giving off a slight pinkish tone) (which would explain the oddness of some fleshtones looking fine on one person in a shot, and the person standing next to them looking bit rich in colour!..different skin tones show up different levels of red)
A few times throughout, there was an odd strobing effect confined mostly to the background shots. During Chapter 4, as the teachers stand out front of the school entrance, the doorway frame pulsates, as do the bars on the windows of the school gym behind the principle in chapter 25. I’d say with some certainty it’s not aliasing, so 'may' have been an MPEG encoding Error of sorts. (will endeavour to find out)
In this Pictures defence, I must say overall that this is an exceptionally sharp and quite a detailed transfer, and has scrubbed up quite nicely.

AUDIO
As is now the standard with most of Roadshow’s DVDs, there are 2 English audio track. The default being a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, the other a Dolby Digital 2.0 track.
Much like Halloween : H20, the audio mix also suffers from the original source material containing distortion (mostly evident in dialogue), which is a damn shame as this is an excellent example of utilising all speakers of a 5.1 mix. The Front sound stage is wide and well detailed, bass attack is quite strong throughout and the surrounds are used very aggressively, making this one hell of a fun soundtrack. In 2.0 mode, you definitely loose a lot of impact this original 5.1 mix offers, but it works well within it’s own right.

EXTRAS
M’kay, so this film is not what you’d called feature packed, but it does offer a few goodies, and one nice surprise (a hidden feature). You’ll find the usual Cast and Crew Interviews (all framed for 16x9 Playback) as well as a Theatrical Trailer, On the Set Footage and the Dolby Digital RAIN Trailer. Now if you hunt around the main menu you’ll find the hidden feature (a trailer for another Roadshow DVD) in the guise of one of the blood drops.