Riya suddenly finds herself as the sole survivor of a bloodbath on a remote space station.
Surrounded by the dead, with fuzzy memories of the victims, she soon meets a mysterious Brion. What’s the truth of the situation? Did she wipe out her crew? Did he? Something else? The unraveling of the mystery is the crux of Ash, a trippy, bloody, and engaging sci-fi/horror from director Flying Lotus.
Riya awakens from a stupor knee-deep in the dead, and with little memory of anything leading to the slaughter, flashes and slightly familiar faces, or what’s left of them. Soon, Brion appears, claiming to be another crewmember, remaining on an orbital station to monitor for issues: like, say, all but one being torn apart. The majority of the film is just the two; along with a medical robot with a cute way of presenting information; it reminded me of similar mechanics in video games), not to mention the bodies and blood of the dead. This brings the questions one expects.
Did she black out and kill the crew? Is Brion telling the truth? Can Riya trust the exposition he’s giving her and us? He’s pushing her to ignore solving the mystery of the violence and leave before the oxygen will run out. The threat of asphyxiation is a driving time crunch for the film, but is he covering himself or helping? Both?
I won’t spoil it, of course. It’s disorienting but meant to be. Paul and Gonzalez play very well in never giving up their truths, working the distrust and understanding. This is especially true for Gonzalez, who spends much of the movie alone, dealing with finding herself and the shocks that come with the story (several well-planned jump scares).
I was concerned coming in, having disliked Flying Lotus’s previous feature Kuso as an unrestrained, purposely edgy mess of energy: all attempted style and annoying substance. I haven’t seen V/H/S99, so I can’t refer to his segment there, but my fears were in vain. Flying Lotus shows an incredible sense of craft when building Ash. Whatever might be said about the familiar beats of Jonni Remmler’s script (more later), Ash is a wonder of look and feel. Flying Lotus keeps a strong hand in the design, the camera use, and using the space to his best ability. Even with a smaller budget, it’s all on-screen with an impressive setting, from the look of space, or the impressively lived-in station. And for those coming for blood and guts, impressive gooey special effects bring another level.
The script does feel over-familiar, in a way a greatest hits of Remmler’s favorites. The DNA of The Thing, Alien, and the video game Dead Space are built into Ash’s body. But it is put together well enough so it never feels direct or poorly done, but “Ah I see what this is” still pokes through. Ash loses a little steam in the center, boarding on repetitive and while picking up again, loses story focus in the third act. While I’m not entirely sure of everything of the “whos and whys” as the credit rolls, I can be sure I enjoyed watching it happen.
With Richard Blucks’s cinematography, Flying Lotus builds an impressive sense of the physical and emotional travails. Bathed in Giallo-inspired blue and red hues, Ash drips unease and tension. Sure, by the end it feels a little overused as one begs the characters to turn on a light, but I get it. It’s an effective tool. Flying Lotus uses the camera and set-ups in effective, well-planned manners. Space looms in Lovecraftian terror, strange circles fill the sky, and nothing looks remotely recognizable. The vast unknowable nature of space, such empty voids in the screen, find Riya dwarfed by the isolation of her planet-based station. It’s the feeling of Alien, Event Horizon, or even the Earth-based The Thing; something out here is messed up and there’s nowhere to go. It doesn’t help Riza the situation is one of paranoia and distrust.
Ash is a very well-made small slice of sci-fi/horror. Strong leads work through the familiar beats of the story, with more than enough gory goop for those loving the wet stuff.