Ash review
Flying Lotus combines visual style with a rock-solid sci-fi horror mystery thriller in Ash.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Ash
Directed by Flying Lotus
Written by Jonni Remmler
Starring Eiza González and Aaron Paul
Ash Review
Flying Lotus knows how to add style to substance. You may have seen the director’s work in the superbly weird Ozzy’s Dungeon segment of V/H/S/99. Ozzy’s Dungeon centered on a twisted revenge plot involving a 90s style Nickelodeon game show. A 10 out of 10 premise that proved to be many viewers’ favorite segment in V/H/S/99. I had it more towards the middle (or…exactly in the middle) behind two other strong showings (To Hell and Back, Suicide Bid) but understood why many ranked it higher. Ozzy’s Dungeon did rank all the way up at #15 on my series ranking…so I was a fan of the short despite some issues with how well the story marries its concepts. What the segment did for me (and, one assumes, many others) was put Flying Lotus on the map as a director to look out for.
Flas forward to 2025…Flying Lotus is back with a feature film titled Ash. Flying Lotus also handles music duties in Ash…providing a memorable and standout score to accompany the visual feast. The story is a deceptively simple one…told with an urgency that keeps you engaged from the opening moment through the final image. What happens in between…well…that’s where the sci-fi/horror/thriller/mystery earns its stripes in each of those genres.
Riya (Eiza Gonzalez) wakes up to find the rest of her crew dead by brutal means. She’s in a space station on another world…and her memory is gone. Riya is trying to piece together what happened…plagued by dark images and frightening memory fragments…when Brion (Aaron Paul) arrives with an escape plan. Can she trust this alleged friend? Can she even trust herself?
Ash is a gorgeous film. When Riya wakes up, she takes an impromptu walk on the planet’s surface. The skies are filled with booming colors…and ash that makes it difficult to breathe. The setting looks beautiful but feels like it’s being cut upon by screams. A kind of vision you might expect previous Flying Lotus collaborator David Lynch to see in his meditations. Most of Ash takes place on the space station…but Flying Lotus paints it with flourishes of memories, dreams and nightmares. An active camera keeps the energy flowing throughout.
Ash is, for the most part, about what happened to Riya’s crew. Inevitably it becomes about why it happened. Ultimately it becomes about survival. The answer to “what” comes fairly early in the story. Riya’s memory flashes reveal she played an active role in the violent, bloody carnage. The “why” of it isn’t revealed until later. Knowing that Riya can’t be trusted creates an interesting dynamic when Brion arrives. Riya is desperate to find the truth…not knowing if she can trust Brion or herself. Brion’s perspective is different. He knows Riya. And he just wants to get off this planet.
There are sci-fi secrets both big and small to be revealed through unravelling Ash’s mystery. Things turn appropriately horrific as Ash eventually turns towards its final form. That form, by the way, is of peak horror experience. The impressive visuals aren’t limited to the foreign skies and lavish edits. What I admired about Ozzy’s Dungeon was how well Flying Lotus showed the twisted story to us. It evoked an afternoon watching Double Dare if Marc Summers was a demented being in league with a demonic ener… It was exactly like watching Double Dare. Ash sees Flying Lotus blow those talents up to a feature worthy format.
Ash sets us in Riya’s confusion, doubt, and horror. The lost memory gimmick may be an old idea…but it continues to be used for a reason. We don’t know what happened any more than Riya does. Discovering it together joins us to her hip on this adventure. Gonzalez does a great job with a role that requires her to spend a lot of time alone on screen. Ash has more than enough energy to never make this, or her investigation, slow down the pace. We spend a long time in Ash not even sure what the enemy is…aside from a ticking clock on Brion’s plan to get out of there. Riya needs to know what happened before she can leave. Finding out increases the chances that she never will.
Scare Value
Ash lives up to its early buzz, delivering standout visuals and an exciting sci-fi horror mystery. Everything feels fresh…even when more traditional science fiction concepts are put into play. It’s an intimate movie that feels big…or, perhaps, the other way around. A well-paced nightmare of lost memories, mysterious deaths, trust issues and, of course, what’s really happening.
3.5/5
Ash Link
In theaters March 21 – Fandango
