A brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal are forced together due to unusual circumstances beyond their control. During this time, these high school students rebel against an unsympathetic faculty, use mind-altering substances, and learn great truths about themselves and each other. Especially during that scene where the gratuitous sixth member of the Breakfast Club morphs into a giant body-snatching alien mutant. Gee, couldn't have seen that coming.

The shockingly derivative The Faculty rips off other sci-fi and horror films with a shamelessness that is astounding. However, despite its blatant steals from genre work, the most notable body-snatch comes from the John Hughes oeuvre -- namely, the 1985 teen movie classic The Breakfast Club. As The Faculty was written by Hughes-wannabe Kevin Williamson, this phenomenon is both sadly predictable yet entirely unforgivable; after all, shouldn't Williamson's know-it-all teenagers be familiar enough with mid-80's teen flicks to identify the killer within seconds? And on that note, spare us the remaining hour and a half of this thoroughly dreadful film?

The basic premise of The Faculty is this: high school teachers are being taken over by alien beings (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) yet all appears physically the same on the outside. A select group of students catches on to this phenomenon, and finds a means of detecting whether they too have been infected (The Thing). However, they do not entirely succeed, resulting in a large, gooey Alien running rampant in the school, while a group of zombie-like "faculty" (Night of the Living Dead) fiercely protect it from a student rebellion led by Elijah Wood, who plays the role of Anthony Michael Hall.

Wood is by far the most capable actor in the movie, certainly better than his inept cohorts: Jordanna Brewster as Molly Ringwald, Shawn Hatosy as Emilio Estevez, Clea DuVall as Ally Sheedy, and the god-awful Josh Hartnett as Judd Nelson. Also present is Laura Harris as hanger-on Marybeth Louise Hutchinson, a.k.a The Big-Ass Mother Alien. However, with public education not what it was in the 1980s, even Anthony Michael can't readily identify this obvious plot point. Instead, Judd discovers that by snorting No-Doz (perhaps one of the most inane and vile glamorizations of drug use in recent film history), the alien being can be detected. Or something like that. The script is so shockingly unoriginal that the flick comes across as one big channel surf; despite strong direction by Robert Rodriguez and some nifty special FX, The Faculty remains one of the worst genre or teen movie entries in recent history, and that's saying a lot. The only person who should have to suffer watching this story-snatching ode to plagiarism is John Hughes' lawyer.

DROOL FACTOR: Josh Hartnett's haircut is a crime against humanity, and Elijah Wood is walking jailbait. The only man worth catching here is the ever-cool Jon Stewart in a cameo role.

GROSS-OUT FACTOR: Sure, the special effects are terrific, but the unapologetic unoriginality of the film doesn't make them particularly exciting.

STRONG CHICK FACTOR: Good lord, will someone please end Clea DuVall's film career NOW! That said, no one else was especially enchanting either. Negative points for all!

The Faculty is currently available on video.

-- Sarah Kendzior