It is incredibly hard to believe that it has been 25 years since the release of Robert Rodriguez’s The Faculty. Yikes. The retooling of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was really fun and took the entire ordeal back to high school. For good measure, the young cast was made up of folks who were up-and-comers. Well, earlier this week Daniel Richtman, an established news breaker announced that Robert Rodriguez is onboard as an upcoming producer on a reboot of The Faculty.

Rodriguez on as a producer is really cool and all… but we can’t help but wish he would come back as a director on this one. The Faculty came out right in the popularity of his other indie edged films including Desperado and Four Rooms. Rodriguez is a much different place now and much more into the world of special effects.

The synopsis for The Faculty broke down like this:

To the students at Harrington High, the principal and her posse of teachers have always been a little odd, but lately they’ve been behaving positively alien. Controlled by otherworldly parasites, the faculty try to infect students one by one. Cheerleader Delilah (Jordana Brewster), football player Stan (Shawn Hatosy), drug dealer Zeke (Josh Hartnett) and new girl Marybeth (Laura Harris) team up with some of their other classmates to fight back against the invaders.

There is a lot that the sequel could build off of. Heck, it would be really cool to mix up this world and tell it from the perspective of the aliens. I mean can you imagine an alien race looking for a place to live being blocked by Gen-Y kids and their eye on everything, 24/7 gossip cycle? Sounds chilling to us.

Right now there are no other details. We will have to wait and see if Rodriguez and his camp admit if there is any truth to this or not. But, in the meantime it sure as heck is exciting to think a reboot of The Faculty could indeed be on the horizon.

What do you think about Rodriguez potentially be on as a producer on The Faculty reboot.

You may not be familiar with the name Josh Stolberg. If not, he is one of the writers who helped create Jigsaw, Spiral, and Saw X on paper. He also wrote the movie Pirhana 3D.

But he might be more recognized as the a writer behind the 2009 remake slasher Sorority Row, starring Carrie Fisher and Rumer Willis. This underrated film has somewhat of a cult following and even if you are a casual horror fan this one is worth a watch.

Recently Stolberg tweeted out a call to action for sorority members to DM him. Before you think he’s creepy, we believe it’s a hint he is writing a sequel to Sorority Row. In fact, he uses the hashtag #SororityRow2 in his caption.

He writes: “Are you in a #sorority right now? Or have you been in a sorority in the past 10 years or so? Doing some research and would love to speak. Please DM me if you’re interested in helping out.”

Stolberg’s 2009 version is a remake of the 1982 cult classic House on Sorority Row which follows a group of college ladies holding on to a secret about their connection to a deadly prank. In a storyline similar to “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” a killer seemingly has uncovered the truth and is on a killing spree, offing the sisters one by one.

Sorority Row is mostly campy, but the kills are memorable and any chance to see Carrie Fisher again — in a horror movie — is reason enough to watch.

Are you in a #sorority right now? Or have you been in a sorority in the past 10 years or so? Doing some research and would love to speak. Please DM me if you're interested in helping out. #SororityRow2? 🤫 pic.twitter.com/bzzaXUfk50

— Josh Stolberg (@joshstolberg) December 8, 2023

It’s been quite a year for some great, and not-so-great horror movies. With that also comes on-screen carnage. As we all know one of the things that make a great horror movie is the inventiveness of the kill, and this year there were some good ones. But with that originality came unsettling scenes of self-harm, child violence, and self-mutilation. Some detractors might ask, with all that’s going on in the world, why would anyone want to see such graphic displays?

To them, I would emphasize that as a species we are intelligent enough to know that it is all fake. None of what we see in movies is real so we can then appreciate the filmmaker’s visions and all the special effects work that goes into perfecting a gag; the more clever, the better.

As you go through the list, be warned there are spoilers and scenes of violence that are mentioned above. If you can’t differentiate what is real from what is not or are easily triggered by scenes of graphic gore or violence against human beings of all ages, you might want to reconsider reading this article.

For the rest of us, here are some of the best horror scenes 2023 has to offer in film.

Evil Dead Rise

Evil Dead Rise is complicated because no one really dies, they just come back…different. But there is one kill scene in which a living mass is destroyed at the end so if you don’t want spoilers don’t read (or watch) any further.

In the last scene, every Deadite merges into a single mass called the Marauder. It has working limbs that grab weapons in an attempt to kill our final girls Beth and Cassie.  But Beth manages to maneuver the creature into a whirling wood chipper grinding everything but the head into a pulp. In the end, Beth, having been taunted one last time by the severed demon head, gets the last word before punting it into the spinning teeth of the industrial appliance.  

Thanksgiving  

Eli Roth knew what fans wanted and he delivered it in Thanksgiving. Of all the kills “John Carver” performs there is one that contains a few horrific jabs. First, a character named Kathleen is shoved into a large oven and cooked alive. Then, after being oven-roasted her arms and legs are tied and positioned like a Thanksgiving turkey on a dining table in front of the gagged and bound survivors. The killer then cuts a slice of cooked white meat from her inner thigh and forces her husband to eat it. 

Cocaine Bear

Poor Ranger Liz (Margo Martindale). She means well but nothing ever works out. First, she has a crush on an unavailable man, and then a huge bear hopped up on illegal stimulants is terrorizing her peaceful park. Her one bout of good luck comes after she is injured and an ambulance quickly arrives to take her to the hospital. That’s cut short after the bear leaps into the back of the speeding ambulance launching her and the stretcher face-first at high velocity into the pavement where the momentum drags her several more feet. 

Saw X

There were a few kill scenes that were difficult to watch this year. Valentina’s death in Saw X was one of them. After her part in a medical scam against John Kramer (Jigsaw) he captures her and creates a trap that forces her to choose between amputating her leg and collecting enough bone marrow or failing and suffering the consequences: decapitation with a Gigli saw. We watch every excruciating second as she saws into her leg and then, after failing, her head slowly being sliced from her shoulders. 

Scream VI

Scream VI had many kills, but the ladder above the alley might have been the most memorable. Anika is the girlfriend of Mindy Meeks and is unfortunately at the wrong place at the wrong time when Ghostface comes calling. In a harrowing scene several stories above a New York City alleyway, she is tasked with crawling across a ladder bridged between two windows to an adjacent building. Fearful of heights she nervously starts her transition but midway through Ghostface rocks the ladder and Anika falls to her death bashing her head against a steel dumpster on the way.

When Evil Lurks

This is probably the most suspensefully well-crafted scene of 2023, and it’s also the most provocative. Vicky, the young daughter of our hero Pedro, is sitting next to the large and hefty family dog who has just become infected by a demon virus. As Pedro and his ex-wife Sabrina argue, Vicky’s older brother looks on in horror as the possessed dog mauls the little girl and drags her down the street. This isn’t the most gruesome scene in the film, but it is the most shocking.

No One Will Save You

This isn’t a human kill, it’s an extraterrestrial one. Our heroine Brynn is in a tense game of cat and mouse inside her house with a large gray alien on her heels. Just as it looks as if the alien is going to win she kills it using a bell tower from her miniature village diorama. What makes this kill so great is that it’s a headshot and we don’t see it coming, and neither does the alien. Furthermore, we aren’t sure what is going to happen next: is the E.T. really dead? And if so what happens next?

It’s a Wonderful Knife

Some might think the axe attack is the best kill in the mediocre It’s a Wonderful Knife, and that might be accurate. However, as a horror fan, the kill is only as good as its gag. For this gag our heroine’s best friend Cara and her boyfriend head off on their own for a private kissing session. During the liplock Cara in recoils in disgust at the taste of her partner’s breath. The camera pans out and we see that he has been impaled and bleeding through the mouth by a large sharpened candy cane yard decoration.

Beau is Afraid

Not everybody likes Beau is Afraid, it is probably the most divisive horror movie of this year. It is so weird and non-linear that some filmgoers got confused and asked the modern question “What did I just watch?” That’s fair because there is so much artistic exposition about anxiety, depression, and grief the culminated result is an exhausting think piece.

There is one memorable scene that deals with mental illness resulting in self-harm and death. Beau is staying with Roger and Grace and their trepidatious daughter Toni. In one scene, Toni, under the spell of an intrusive thought, begs Beau to drink some blue house paint, and when he refuses she engulfs it herself thus resulting in her death.

It is such a weird moment that only adds to then quirkiness of the movie, but it remains with you in afterthought.

These are just a few noteworthy kills in horror movies this year. We know there are more that weren’t included. So if you have a favorite that we missed, let us know in the comments.