Summary
Yet another small, isolated community is falling prey to an evil experiment conducted by a madman! No one between the ages of 12 and 18 is safe! The authorities are in on it! The parents are stupid! The teachers seem to be largely non-existent! Fortunately, the new kid, the stoners, and the crazy janitor are on the job! Not a new plot line, but not necessarily a bad one either. I like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (both of them and the 1993 remake "Body Snatchers" but the 1978 version most of all) and I love "Freaks and Geeks," so I ought to like the two of them put together. Somehow, this isn't as good as either one, though. Where's Donald Sutherland when you need him?
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
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Barbara's Rant
Don't you find it fascinating how teen horror movies have changed over the last fifty years or so? Let's start with how they haven't changed.
1) No adult ever believes anything a teenager tells them, even if that teenager is a blood relation. Usually this is necessary for the plot, but accomplished clumsily. I am willing to believe that many parents would sign their kids up for school program with a great record of success at rehabilitating poor students. I am not willing to believe that Stevie-boy's parents would walk back into their house and allow their son to be beat senseless by a rampaging mob of varsity football players.
2) All teenager are really, really old. I was very confused at the beginning of this movie because the first shot of Steve and his sister led me to believe that she was on her way to college. Imagine my surprise when I found out that she was in middle school. Thank god no one that looked like her went to my middle school. I was enough of a loser as it was without having to compete with seventeen-year-old models. Steve himself has got to be at least twenty-five. To quote Tom Servo from episode #404 "Teenagers from Outer Space," "Really old teenagers from outer space!"
3) OK, I didn't really want to enumerate all the ways that teen horror movies haven't changed over the years, I just wanted to say those two things. It is pretty weird though, don't you think that after all these years no one has figured out that it is possible to tell the difference between a seventeen year old and a twenty five year old. On the other hand, I did once have a really hard time convincing a woman at a truck stop to sell me cigarettes even with my driver's license. (Don't worry Mom and Dad, this was before I quit; I don't smoke any more.) I should have told her to watch this movie. Ooh! Or maybe she has already watched too many movies with thirty year old teenagers and has lost the ability to distinguish between the ages of anyone under forty-five! Damn you, Roger Corman!!! (Insert visual: my fist shaken menacingly at nothing in particular.)
4) Here's the point I was really getting at. Ha, ha I fooled you - you didn't think I had one, did you? Virtually all teen horror movies made in the fifties and sixties feature some kind of jock as the hero. He is respected and admired by his peers. He has many friends, none of whom I can ever tell apart. His girlfriend is popular, beautiful, and just smart enough not to be threatening. Virtually all teen horror movies made in the eighties and nineties feature the local outcast as the hero. He's frequently new to the area, where he befriends the resident misfits. He and/or his new friends are usually some combination of potheads, peeping toms, comic book aficionados, and that scrawny guy in gym class that everyone made fun of so they could feel better about themselves. His love interest is almost invariably referred to as "that slut." "Disturbing Behavior," "Idle Hands," "The Lost Boys," well . . . maybe not virtually all teen horror movies, but you've got to admit there's a fair number of them. "The Faculty" I think does a nice job of blending the jock, the hot, popular girl, the druggie, and the nerd into the hero role. But then, I have a soft spot for that movie because I have a thing for Elijah Wood. And before you say anything, I had it before Lord of the Rings opened. Me and the twelve-year-old girl standing in front of us in line for "The Fellowship of the Ring" on opening day three hours before show time wearing a homemade T-shirt bearing the words "I love Elijah Wood!" She's got good taste for someone that young, I think. At that age I had a crush on Corey Feldman. It could have been worse, of course; I could have had a crush on Corey Haim.
5) OK, maybe I didn't really have a point after all, except that I credit "Grease" with raising the school outcast into the role of hero. And that's all I will ever credit "Grease" with. Thank you, and good night.
BARBARA JO
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