Ash Review

Ash opens successful theaters connected Friday, March 21, and volition watercourse connected Shudder astatine a aboriginal date. This reappraisal is based connected a screening astatine the 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival.

It’s been much than 10 years since EA archetypal floated the thought of a live-action Dead Space movie, and we’re inactive waiting for our archetypal look astatine a Necromorph connected the large screen. At archetypal glance, Ash seems similar the adjacent champion thing: The sci-fi fearfulness movie from euphony producer, DJ, rapper, and manager Flying Lotus evokes Dead Space successful tone, taxable substance and visuals. But fans of the franchise, and scary movies acceptable among the stars successful general, shouldn’t get their hopes up. Gnarly visuals, decent leap scares, and immaculate vibes aren’t capable to prevention Ash from being convoluted, overstuffed, derivative, and dull.

Riya Ortis (Eiza González) wakes up successful a desolated presumption that crashed connected a distant planet; her surroundings are bathed successful reddish lights, informing messages flash connected machine screens, and dormant bodies are strewn astir the place. This benignant of happening has been the instauration for plentifulness of innovative sci-fi stories – it’s the Weyland-Yutani-issued breadstuff and food of Alien and its galore offshoots – but arsenic the adjacent 95 minutes prove, Ash isn’t 1 of them one. The crippled revolves astir Riya's attempts to portion unneurotic the puzzle of what precisely happened to the abstraction station, her crewmates, and her memories – she has nary thought of who she is oregon however she got here. Things get analyzable with the accomplishment of Brion (Aaron Paul), a antheral claiming to beryllium a crewmate who was orbiting astir the satellite erstwhile helium got a distress telephone from the presumption and decided to investigate.

From there, Ash fails to contiguous immoderate thought that isn't derivative of different movie oregon a video game: Dead Space is simply a wide influence, but truthful are Event Horizon’s trippy edge-of-a-black-hole freakouts. The bulk of it plays retired similar a crippled successful which Riya wakes up, rummages for clues, goes to sleep, and wakes backmost up with a horrendous imaginativeness of things that happened to the remainder of the unit – which whitethorn contradict the thought that she had thing to bash with their deaths. The probe feels padded to the constituent of repetition, the merchandise of a cryptic publication whose plotting grows unnecessarily intricate. By fundamentally replaying each of Ash astatine a faster, much comprehensible clip, the ending proves that this communicative could’ve been told successful arsenic small arsenic 20 minutes.

What small we larn astir the characters of Ash is learned done flashbacks, arsenic we gradually acquisition the travel of the unit alongside Riya arsenic she regains her memory. And yet nary of them consciousness indispensable oregon adjacent that absorbing – they’re conscionable cannon fodder for the galore alien threats they face. The Raid prima Iko Uwais is peculiarly wasted, getting astir thing to enactment with (and immoderate lackluster combat choreography) successful the relation of Riya’s brag connected the station, Adhi. González, meanwhile, isn’t rather up to the task of playing this benignant of stranded survivor: She tin springiness the vulnerability and fearfulness of Ripley successful Alien, but not the steelier, action-hero Ripley of Aliens.

At slightest Flying Lotus manages to amusement disconnected his knack for dependable and visuals. The soundtrack is fantastic, creating an eerie ambiance that's arsenic enthralling arsenic it is terrifying. Ash looks some costly and expansive, with accumulation plan that creates a lived-in world; Flying Lotus uses the camera to marque the corridors of the abstraction presumption consciousness some endless and claustrophobic.

Though what precisely the unit recovered connected this unusual satellite should stay unspoiled, beryllium alert that Ash takes plentifulness of cues from The Thing arsenic good arsenic Alien: Something is hunting Riya and her comrades down, and their deaths are ghastly and slimy. (Flying Lotus seems to particularly bask crafting bizarre, gory imagination sequences and horrifying scenes of mutilated bodies covered successful heavy blood.) But adjacent though what we spot successful Ash is interesting, it’s bogged down by a mediocre story, and it’s not helped by strobing airy effects and assertive editing that’s truthful accelerated and intense, it mightiness conscionable induce question sickness.