The Faculty [HD]

50's sci-fi meets 90's pop generation.
Most people would think that the above combination would fail, but not at the hand of Kevin Williamson, writer of this wonderful science-fiction film brought to life by talented actors and from the director of "From Dusk Till Dawn." Opening with an intense scene in which the school principal is attacked and overtaken by two alien staff, the film only gets better, introducing us to the seperate lives of each of the students who will come together to stop the faculty, as well as the student body, from taking over the entire town. As more people become converted, the small band of "refugees" begin to discover their own clues, ultimately deducing that the queen alien must be eliminated if they are to save the town. Some might think the plot and material to be juvenile, yet it has a certain intelligence and thinking factor behind its young and fresh cast. Also, the film blends with its story many of the elements used in movies of the same genre from the...

Get the original (Dimension) release instead
This review is specifically about the technical aspects of the DVD, not the movie itself.

This DVD (ASIN B004P7CN7W, UPC 0-96009-75089-3) is the 2011 Echo Bridge Home Entertainment release of The Faculty, and it differs quite a bit from the 1999 Dimension release of the movie (ASIN 6305428220, UPC 7-17951-0022-8-0).

Video:
Echo Bridge = Anamorphic 16:9 widescreen, so it will take up the entire screen of your widescreen TV.
Dimension = Letterboxed widescreen in 4:3 format, so your widescreen TV will show a small picture with big black bars on all four sides.
Both releases are Region 1 NTSC (even though the Echo Bridge release does not specify this on the back sleeve).

Audio:
Echo Bridge = The movie is Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kbps). The menu has music in Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kbps).
Dimension = The movie is Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kbps). The menu does not have sound.
Both releases have one audio track only (English)...

The Moral of the Story: Never Add Water to Anything
During a time when the cinematic bowels of horror ruptured and teen movies seemed to flood the market and become a dime a dozen, I opted to skip this film because of some very bad experiences that still didn't set very well with me. Like many of the people I knew, there were lingering doubts plaguing me as to whether a mainstreamed cast of this nature could actually approach the terrible in a convincing way and if a theme that echoed "aliens kidnapped my baby while at high school" could actually find a way to be new and diverse. After a time, however, I opted to buy it on an impulse, liking something I had seen about the making of the beast that all the trouble stems from in this tale. After countless rewatches, I have to say that this isn't what I first stereotyped it to be and, although it isn't original, is very appealing.

We begin in the confines of our little Ohio-based school system, introduced to the living representations of all our modern stereotypes of what students can...

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