Ash Review

There’s a certain type of low-budget sci-fi I will always show up for. They lack the money to pull off a grand epic. They feature limited action, although a clever director can disguise that with filmmaking tricks and careful planning. They never feature current stars, although rising actors and those past their prime are fair game. Despite these limitations, they eschew the more common dialog-centric approach for one full of vibrant, surreal imagery in order to convey their fairly basic plot. That isn’t to downplay my love of talk-heavy sci-fi, like Coherence and Ex Machina. Rather, it’s to play up my appreciation of ambitious visuals. As much as I love quiet, contemplative dramas, I also love cool, inventive imagery. Recent films like Divinity, Strawberry Mansion, and Neptune Frost come to mind. Which is to say that Ash is in good company.

Riya (Eiza González) wakes up in a daze on a distant planet, the titular Ash, with only faint memories of what led to her head wound and fuzzy memory. She immediately sets about exploring the empty space base, full of glitching computer screens, damaged equipment, and no one else. The air outside is no longer breathable, allowing her just enough time to note the swirling, menacing vortex high above. Soon, she stumbles across deceased fellow astronaut Kevin (Beulah Koale), who’s been stabbed; clearly, one of their crew went on a rampage. Brief flashes of recognition implicate Clarke (Kate Elliott), as Riya recalls being attacked by her. As she attempts to piece all this together, there’s a knock on the door of the airlock. Brion (Aaron Paul), the Michael Collins of their mission, apparently received a distress signal from Riya shortly before she passed out.

What follows is a series of tense sequences as they work to reconstruct what happened and determine next steps, despite never quite trusting one another. They’re all alone in this corner of the universe, one of humanity’s last-gasp attempts to find a new home. No help is coming. They must choose between escaping the planet, or staying behind to figure out what happened with the aid of Riya’s increasingly nightmarish recollections.

Most flashbacks are shown in Riya’s first-person POV, an effective device that’s finding more and more usage in mainstream films. As her memory fills in, it begins to feel reminiscent of a video game. When holding a gun in these recollections, it angles into the frame à la Goldeneye. The base is made of dark hallways, flickering lights, pulsing neon, and a killer dark electronic score that owes a debt to Metroid Prime. Their last chance to link up with the orbiter before the oxygen runs out imposes a timer on their investigation. The glow of the computer screens, the periodic presence of a cheerful, automated, Japanese-speaking portable surgery kit, and the helmet lights on their spacesuits all center the role of technology while also lending the frame an air of unreality.

Further intensifying the surreality are the horrifying fragments of memory that poke in, each lasting a fraction of a section. Some are triggered by her discoveries as we look on, and some are her imagination running wild. Most are incomplete, or sub-second shots of abstract or disturbing imagery: bleeding skulls, human viscera, the energy emanating from the “wells” that dot the landscape, the faces of her dead companions, moments of joy, fear, beauty, and so much more. All create the vibe of a life before disrupted by some terrible tragedy, raising the stakes while never pushing too far past what the budget can support.

Of course, enticing visuals don’t make up for a subpar script, which is the start of where Ash falls short. The major plot beats are quite predictable, often supporting just one or two possible satisfying resolutions, both of which you’ve seen many times before. There are some late-breaking reveals that are quite unsettling in the best way. But everything else you’ll see coming far in advance, long before the characters do. The pacing is pretty solid throughout, aided by the oft energetic music. That said, it does get muddled a handful of times when the film grinds to a halt for the characters to deliver some heavy-handed exposition. Even the exploration of the ship gets repetitive after a spell.

The performances aren’t doing a whole lot to help, either. Neither González nor Paul is bad per se, but both would fit better in a cheesy action movie. While I personally enjoy lines like “We’re all dealing with some pretty meteoric shit right now,” they’re quite out of place. As tensions rise, so do their voices, the default for characters at each others’ throats. The movie is at its best when there’s minimal dialog, such as the opening stretch of the movie, which sees Riya alone in the base for a good fifteen minutes or so.

As if director Flying Lotus came to that realization himself, the plot starts to fall away as we reach the climax and push towards the ending. The consequences of the film’s events aren’t ignored, but the focus is on what the characters are experiencing. It’s a smart move, as people most strongly remember how the end made them feel, even if the middle was messier. All of which announces him as an exciting new voice on the scene, able to craft an unforgettable journey on a tiny budget and with little promotion. His music career is far more well-established, with each album receiving critical acclaim, so there’s no telling how soon he’ll return to directing, if ever. But his debut feature shows a ton of promise should he wish to pursue it further, so I’ll be first in line if he does.