By Keith Walther | Rose Law Group Reporter
An overdone sci-fi horror premise developed with a substantially small budget requires more creativity to enhance entertainment value, but this film comes up dreadfully short. With a storyline all too similar to films like “Event Horizon,” “The Thing,” “Life,” and “Alien,” “Ash” tries to inject psychological horror to keep viewers constantly off balance. However, a lack of detail orientation, authenticity, and well-written dialogue prevents this movie from standing on its own out of the shadows of those aforementioned films.
A mission to find a new habitable planet goes horribly awry when Riya (Eiza González) awakens on this strange world only to find her crewmates have been gruesomely slaughtered. Disoriented from injuries she sustained that left her without any memory of what happened, Riya tries to piece the mystery together, not knowing if the perpetrator is still aboard the space station. A glimmer of hope arrives in the form of Brion (Aaron Paul), another crew member who happened to be away from the station during the carnage and returned after receiving no replies to his communications.
As snapshots of visceral images terrorize Riya’s mind, giving her only fleeting glimpses of the terrible murders, she begins to question her trust in Brion and even herself. With only a limited amount of oxygen left, the two explorers must find a way to survive while unraveling the mystery before they become victims themselves. The most terrifying realization for the both of them is that they’re not alone on this desolate planet.
The science fiction genre is a complex undertaking for the most seasoned of filmmakers, but director Flying Lotus (yes, that is his stage name) further complicates this story by arranging the scenes in a non-linear fashion. Unfortunately, with a lack of attention to detail and authenticity, he loses his audience amidst a series of plot holes and obvious filmmaking mistakes that even the most unobservant would notice. Known for his artistic visual style, Lotus tries to dress up the film using colored lighting in shades of pink and purple, which adds flavor but little else. Everything about this movie feels borrowed with little to no creativity to appeal to viewers. Even the surreal dream sequences that become nightmares are clearly inspired by “Silent Hill.”
Flying Lotus’ attempts to horrify his audience fall flat. At first, his quick cuts to disturbing, bloody images accompanied by a loud shrieking noise elicit some cheap jump scares, but their shock value quickly fades with every follow-up attempt. The very limited budget makes for a very small set, limiting his options to frighten and condensing the visuals to a well-worn path that diminishes the surprise factor. However, good horror directors know how to use this to their advantage to create an atmospheric, claustrophobic sense of terror at which Lotus proves to be inept. He does get to showcase his strength of music composition with a score that pairs very well with the movie, which seems to be the only ounce of creativity one can find amidst this junk drawer equivalent.
The entire casting of “Ash” is ill-fitting at best with every single actor and actress incapable of making their characters remotely believable of being capable enough for space travel. With Eiza González (“Baby Driver”) and Aaron Paul (“Breaking Bad”) in the lead roles, the level of talent is nowhere close to the level of complexities in their characters. Eiza was clearly in a constant state of confusion regarding the timeline of the scenes being filmed in relation to their place in the script with reactions that don’t quite match. This prevented her from achieving any kind of emotional connection with the character, leading to audience ambivalence. As for Aaron Paul, he simply seemed awkwardly out of place in a role with which he had no clue how to connect. Granted, the dialogue writing is overly simplistic and out of touch with the characters, but these actors were unable to sell their lines convincingly throughout the film.
Just because it’s an independent film made on a shoestring budget doesn’t give it a free pass to suck. “Ash” is a space horror flick that is a regurgitation of themes and ideas that have been done by similar movies countless times before and done significantly better. This is simply an amateur production that fails to impress or horrify, much less entertain, so don’t expect a phoenix to rise out of these ashes.
This movie earns:
