Seven years ago, I attended my first Columbus Science Fiction Marathon, and one of the big “premiere” screenings that year was the old-school alien-invasion parody The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. This upcoming weekend’s marathon (tickets still available!) goes back to the SF pastiche well with Alien Trespass, which looks slicker but no less ridiculous. Frankly, I’m of two minds about movies like this. While the filmmakers sometimes get some good gags from the antiquated style (not to mention the occasional good line like Cadavra’s “Aliens? Us? Is this one of your Earth ‘jokes’?”), movies like these seem too easy to me. Having seen my share of bad sci-fi over the years, I’ve found that there are enough funny bad movies that were made in complete sincerity- see Robot Monster, or better yet don’t- that subjecting them to satire seems like an empty gesture. Another questionable element I can see is the glossiness of the project- it’s too good-looking a movie to really lampoon the style of the alien movies of yore, but it could work if director R.W. Godwin intends it as a serious homage. Which will it be? I guess I’ll be finding out this weekend.