Funnily enough, I looked up self awareness vs parody, and the first movie based article specifically addressed those two movies.

https://slowburnhorror.com/2024/11/27/self-aware-but-not-self-conscious-how-tremors-and-maxxxine-write-love-letters-to-the-horror-genre/

To summarize, parodies show why those things being parodied are dumb, while self awareness is embracing the tropes while not taking itself seriously. Which answers my question.