Since the success of the Scream films we have been inundated with teen-slashers. Fortunately, The Faculty is not really one of them. Oh sure, it stars a disparate bunch of teens, and there's a fair amount of violence. But this is a different genre - still a horror film, but a science-fiction, alien invasion film, in which the entire teaching staff of a middle-American high school are taken over by aliens.

The benefit of science-fiction, of course, is that it reduces the logic problems immensely. The alternatively irritating or ridiculous explanation section of the teen-slasher film ('well, I'm chasing you around with a knife because you killed my father's brother's cousin's Auntie Claire') is immediately cut out, allowing more room for cool scares and funky dialogue. Of course, there's still logic problems, but...

The Faculty stars the writing talents of Kevin Williamson (who started the whole thing off by giving us both Scream movies, the original 'I know what you did etc' and Dawson's Creek, which arguably qualifies as a horror in its own right...) and the directing talents of Robert Rodriguez, who's worked the 'unnatural horror' angle before with From Dusk Till Dawn. They combine to create this interesting slide into Invasion of the Body Snatchers territory. Elijah Wood plays a rather obvious 'author fantasy figure' as the geeky kid who ends up fighting to save the school, along with Clea DuVal as the introvert, Josh Harnett as the extrovert and Shawn Hatosy as the footballer who wants to be liked for his brains, despite the fact he hasn't got any. Plus there's an all-star cast of teachers (including Salma Hayek) who mostly end up acting like zombies for the entirety of the film.

If you're looking for balls-to-the-wall action like that which characterised the second half of From Dusk till Dawn, this isn't where you're going to find it. However, if you're looking for a lightweight B-type thriller that's not breath-takingly original but is fun none the less, you could do worse.