‘Ash’ is a claustrophobic sci-fi horror film that nods to the greats but struggles with a thin plot and predictable twists.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Are you ready for an unofficial remake of the Kinji Fukasaku 1968 American-Japanese-Italian-sourced, sci-fi cult fave, “The Green Slime,” directed by an L.A.-born filmmaker named Flying Lotus?
Well, buckle up buckaroos, because that is what this Eiza Gonzalez-fronted sci-fi thriller named “Ash” is. Scripted by Swiss writer Jonni Remmler, whose only previous credit is a German TV series, “Ash” references several other noteworthy science-fiction titles as well, most notably “Alien” (1979) in early scenes featuring fellow astronauts, sharing a meal around a table. OK, whose chest is gonna burst?
Gonzalez of “Godzilla vs Kong” (2021) and “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” (2024), proves that she can carry a film, even one as poorly focused as this. She is Riya, a member of a team running a ground station on a planet that is being terra-formed (I think). But in the opening scenes, she wakes up to the tune of the computer system announcing “abnormal activity detected.” Make that “abby normal.” She finds the bodies of several of her cohorts in various states of mutilated dead, and that one person, a woman named Clarke (Kate Elliott), is missing. Riya wakes up in her chamber, which features a “Star Trek” style sliding door. She has a serious head injury, amnesia, and visions/and/or/ flashbacks to the deaths of her cohorts. She sees her cohorts dying in disgusting ways and revisits some hand-to-hand fighting.
Riya is bathed in dim blue and red lights at first. She then steps outside without a spacesuit and stands in a snowfall of some sort (peroxide?). Most disturbing, a giant eyeball gazes down upon her from space. She gets back inside before choking. So far, we’ve received vibrations of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” (1979), Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Solaris” (1972) and the “Venom” series. You may recall that the late Ian Holm, aka Bilbo Baggins, played the android Ash in the original 1979 “Alien.”
Sporting a mohawk, Aaron Paul arrives belatedly to the proceedings as Brion, the guy who was up in the orbital while disaster struck the ground crew. Or is he a ghostly figment? He tells Riya that they have 12 hours to return to the orbital, their only chance to survive, starting a countdown.
Limited to a small cast and low budget, “Ash” boasts fine work by art director Sam Storey (“Avatar: The Way of Water”) and set decorator Gui Taccetti (“Our Flag Means Death”). Lensing by New Zealander Richard Bluck (“What We Do in the Shadows”) delivers striking, atmospheric touches. Visual effects by veteran Jacob Leaf (“Evil Dead Rise”) are also first-rate on a budget. Many of the effects evoke sci-fi body horror in films such as John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982). Yes, in a tip o’ the cap to the aforementioned “The Green Slime,” we get glimpses of a cyclopean alien creature with limbs like an octopus or starfish. A mechanized first-aid kit speaks Japanese for reasons unexplained.
Lotus, aka Steven Ellison, also plays an amiable character named Davis. His only previous directing credit is a 2017 post-apocalyptic entry I have not seen. He handles his duties well. The cast does its best with the screenplay, presumably designed to keep the action limited and the spaces inexpensively claustrophobic. Did Riya or did Riya not kill her fellow outer-space travelers? It seems she did. But why? It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out. One never wants to hear the words, “Hull breach, O2 critical.” Later, the confounded Riya allows, “Something is not adding up.” I’ll say.
Gonzalez wears low-slung pants and multiple tank tops. She convincingly loses it as the stressed-out amnesiac, and the actor cries on cue. Time appears to be circular at a brisk 95 minutes. Where did they get that piano? Somebody ought to play it. “Unusual parasitic activity detected.” Yes, we know.
‘Ash’
Rating: R for bloody violence, gore, and language.
Cast: Eiza Gonzalez, Aaron Paul
Director: Flying Lotus
Writer: Jonni Remmler
Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes
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