Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. You know, this type of wink-wink filmmaking is dangerous. It's damn near impossible to strike the right balance of respect and playful poking fun while at the same time telling a story that's worth telling. The ALIEN TRESPASS guys showed up to WonderCon and I didn't have the heart to write up how bad their presentation looked. I get that it's a fake "lost movie" from the era, but they shot it in color, on an obvious digital format (or at least so badly lit that it looks like bad HD), so they weren't willing to go the extra mile. Also, director RW Goodwin (X-FILES) seemed full of contradictions and I'm not sure he knew what he wanted out of this movie. For instance, he told a story about how he rewatched all these "bad" sci-fi films he grew up loving and pulled moments, like a shot from THE EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS where the characters are obviously running on a treadmill with rear screen projection behind them. So he took that and put it in the movie, even having the actors stop before the scene cuts, with the background still moving. The very next question he fielded was about how much winking at the camera he does and he quickly responded "None at all." So, what does he think that treadmill stuff is? I don't get how people play up loving homage and then spend the majority of their movie making things look as bad as possible. That's not how the original films were made, trying to be stupid. Anyway, that's my rant. I was disappointed with the footage, but thought Robert Patrick and Dan Lauria (Wonder Years FTW!) looked like they were trying to have fun. Here's another reader review, this time from Capone's Chicago screening. Enjoy!
Hello, My name is Steven Meierkord and I just got back from the Alien Tresspass screening that I was fortunate to win through Capone's contest (thanks again!). I thought I would write a review to share with other AICNers that have any interest in this film. If you use this please come up with some creative alias :) To put it simple, many people left during this screening but I, being the fool, stayed until the bitter end. The movie was half baked and boring. It only received a handful of chuckles out of me and a longing for it to end. The premises of the file is that it is set in the 1950's and a UFO crashes near a small town in Nevada. The alien with one eye (Gota pronounced goat-ah) runs out of the ship and begins eating animals and people leaving only puddles that resemble cat hairball juice behind. He also has the ability to turn invisible which he does a lot, trying to mimic the low budget/simple special effects of the era. The other alien, Urp, is the silver dude (that is a rip off of Gort's look) who has to stop the alien before it eats too much and "splits" and ends up eating all the people in the world. In order to conceal his true form he takes over a doctors body played by Eric McCormack. The problem is that this movie is supposed to be a cheesy/funny spoof of 1950's sci-fi horror movies. Cheesy, yes...but not cheesy enough to be funny. After watching the first 20 minutes you have seen all the movie has to offer. It doesn't get any funnier nor does it get any more interesting. The entire movie is predicable and the only shock of the film to me, and a mild one at that, is that a kid gets turned into a puddle. The acting is hard to judge since everyone is supposed to act like amateurs and the lines are stereotypical and recycled "Only two days to retirement and this happens." says the police chief. The ending was a let down and it never built up to anything. In fact when I got to my car I had to think about when the climax took place. I think it was a good thing that the director didn't show up because he would have just got in the way of all the quite people hurrying out of the theater as fast as they could after it was over. I have no true talent for writing reviews of films, nor do I want to take the time out to develop one on this this film. All I can say is that if you have any interest in this film then rent it on DVD when it comes out....which should be real fast.
