Alien Trespass

Somewhere between tribute and parody lies Alien Trespass, a loving but extremely dull flashback to 1950s B-horror sci-fi films that doesn't seem to know if it is an intentionally campy homage, or a witty satire. The movie fails on both levels. It's too polished and modern to be campy, no matter how intentionally chintzy the filmmakers try to make the effects, and the jokes fall flat at an alarming rate. In fact, the film's sole laugh comes from its poster, which lists the movie as being rated PG for (and I quote) "brief historical smoking".

Before the movie begins, we're shown a newsreel film that talks about how differences between the studio and the film's star in 1957 prevented Alien Trespass (rumored to be the greatest sci-fi movie ever made) from ever being released. We're then given the opportunity to view this "lost classic", and we're immediately put off by the film's opening image - A computer rendered UFO flying toward a video game-quality CG effect of the planet Earth. Talk about killing the nostalgic vibe right off the bat. I was also disappointed with how polished and shiny the film looks. Would it have killed director R.W. Goodwin (TV's The X-Files) to shoot the thing in black and white? It would have at least helped the mood. Maybe I'm nitpicking here, but when I'm promised a lost relic from the late 50s, I don't want to see computer aided images, no matter how low budget they look. The movie also contains some inappropriate dialogue for its film time period, with characters flinging insults like "you really bite" that took me out of the mood the movie was trying to create.

Nonetheless, the plot at least seems to get it right. A stuffy and pipe smoking scientist named Ted Lewis (Eric McCormack) leaves his beautiful sexpot wife behind to investigate a bright light that fell from the sky and crashed in the mountains nearby. When he returns home from the crash site, he's a completely different man, because his body is now being inhabited by an intergalactic being who goes by the name of Urp. Urp has come to Earth to save us from the Ghota, a strange one-eyed squid-like creature that feeds upon humans, the remains of its victims nothing more than a puddle of muddy goo, and will eventually multiply and spread to conquer the world. Urp's only aid in his battle against the Ghota is a plucky young waitress from the local diner named Tammy (Jenni Baird), who's a lot more confident and stronger than I remember female leads being in these kind of movies. There are also a couple of teenage kids who get wrapped into the plot when they discover Urp's spaceship, and a few police officers (Dan Lauria as the grizzled and worn police chief only two days from retirement, Robert Patrick as a gung-ho officer who doesn't believe the kids' stories about the UFO) who are trying to figure out why the respectable scientist Ted is now zapping people with ray guns and stealing cars.

Alien Trespass certainly has more than enough material to work with to be fun in a campy way, but it remains grounded throughout. The storytelling is flaccid and nowhere near fast-paced enough to hold our attention. Likewise, the jokes are obvious and often downright painful. This movie's idea of a comic highlight is a scene where Tammy encounters the alien-controlled Dr. Lewis. When he tells her his name is Urp, she responds with "Would you like some Rolaids"? Unfortunately, this is about as good as the jokes get here. The movie could have benefitted from a much more knowing and sly humor, maybe along the lines of Mel Brooks' classic parodies Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles. Those movies not only understood the look and tone of the films they were making fun of, they dug deep into them and examined their very structure and cliches with a sharp wit. The fun of Alien Trespass is merely at the surface level. We smile or nod a little out of recognition, then we grow depressed when we realize that's as far as the movie is going to go. All the elements are there, but it refuses to do anything with them.

It also begs the question just who is this movie made for? The idea behind the movie will obviously appeal to fans of the classic genre, but they are likely to be disappointed. There's a lot more sophistication and thought in a lot of the movies this one satires (such as The Blob or the original The Day the Earth Stood Still) than here. They'll also probably be put off by the technical inaccuracies more than I was. So, who's left? Is there really an audience for this sort of thing outside of cult film addicts? My guess is no, and there probably still won't be after this movie's limited run in theaters. This is a movie that made for very few and speaks to no one. The fact that it comes across as being even lamer than the movies it's referencing makes the whole thing even more pointless. Despite a running time of only 88 minutes, the movie feels endless thanks to its sluggish tone, and it stops being fun and just turns into a chore to sit through.

Alien Trespass was obviously made with the best of intentions, but there's nothing on display here. It's all a lot of fanboyish film love without anything to back it up. In order for something like this to work, it needs a dash of intelligence and wit, maybe some comic anarchy. This movie plays it too straight to work as a parody, and is too empty to work as an homage. The end result is a movie that feels like a big waste of time on everyone's part, especially the audience.

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