The MixTape podcast · Movie Review Podcast

The Faculty ''1998'' film

February 16, 2026·1 hr·1 clip

The Faculty's brilliant misdirection: innocent teacher becomes shocking assassin.

Marcelo and Dean stay on The Faculty, the 1998 Kevin Williamson and Robert Rodriguez horror movie. Dean says it is one of her favorite 90s horror movies. She remembers seeing it for the first time and not quite knowing what she was looking at. She also makes it clear that Josh Hartnett is part of the appeal. The conversation starts at the football field. Coach Willis is laid out as a screaming, miserable adult who is hard to like from the jump. Stan, one of the players, is close to decking him but holds back. That opening does the heavy lifting. The hosts treat it like a clean setup for the film's central idea that the kids cannot count on the adults. They walk through how Casey's warnings get dismissed by his dad, his mom, the faculty, and the police. Nobody believes him. That leaves the teenagers stuck doing the work themselves. Marcelo likes that the script keeps pushing the main characters against the wall. Dean agrees that the movie keeps taking away exits until the kids have to lean on one another. They also spend time on the acting style and on how Robert Rodriguez seems to direct people toward a slightly off, vacant energy once the weirdness starts spreading. The episode even notes a bit of actor recognition, with a Scream 2 connection popping up in the middle of the recap. A home scene becomes the main point of disagreement. Casey's father tears through his room looking for drugs, and Casey ends up sneaking out the window to see three faculty members outside before they vanish. The hosts do not think that scene earns its keep, especially because the story never returns to Casey's house. They close on a trivia note that the film was originally called The Feelers and that The Faculty is the better title anyway.

As heard by us

A loose, writerly revisit that keeps The Faculty focused on craft, pressure, and adult disbelief.

The Mixtape Podcast treats The Faculty as a loose but attentive writer-to-writer conversation, with Marcelo Nostroza and Dean Stark tracing how Kevin Williamson and Robert Rodriguez shape a 1998 high school horror movie.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A 90s horror favorite gets the mixtape treatment, with a writerly read on setup, payoff, and Josh Hartnett praise.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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