The ScreenLab defines Genre Squatting as the act of occupying a Science Fiction setting while actively loathing the discipline required to maintain it. Andrei Tarkovsky didn’t just pioneer this; he admitted to it. By his own account, he adapted Solaris because he needed the money and the “respected” cover of author Stanisław Lem to bypass Soviet censors.
The ScreenLab has a low tolerance for Genre Squatting. This is when a creator uses the aesthetic of Science Fiction, the spaceships, the alien ecologies, the “Soldier Scientists”, but refuses to do the actual discipline of the genre. Annihilation (2018) is the ultimate specimen of this fraud. It is a film that mistakes a lack of contrast for atmosphere and “Scientific Delusions” for intellectual depth. If the Spectral Green Screen Mud was a technical failure of green-screen logistics, Annihilation (2018) is a deliberate aesthetic crime. It is a film that mistakes vagueness for depth and desaturation for “atmosphere.” At ScreenLab, I classify this as Vague-Core Sci-Fi, a genre where the creators are so in love with their own perceived intellect that they refuse to respect the basic rules of the genre they’re squatting in.