Lately, there have been a string of sci-fi/horror films dealing with astronauts going to a strange planet or studying some unknown lifeform. The latest in a long line of them is Ash from director Flying Lotus. Yes, that’s the name he goes by. He is primarily known as a record producer but dabbles in filmmaking from time to time. He is a man of many trades. He definitely has a flair for style, that’s for sure.

Riya (Eiza Gonzalez) is an astronaut on board a spacecraft with a handful of other men and women exploring a new planet, Ash, that could potentially inhabit life. With no memory of what happened, temporary amnesia, she mysteriously wakes up. When a stranger, Btion (Aaron Paul), comes to the hatch saying he is a member of the crew left on the ship above the planet’s atmosphere. He’s responding to a distress call, but she doesn’t know if she should believe him or not. Reluctantly, she lets him in, and they try to figure out what happened to the rest of the crew.

The supporting cast representing the rest of the crew is filled with some character actors you may know. The first is Davis (Flying Lotus) who’s also the director, Adhi (Iko Ulwais) Kevin (Beulah Koale) Clarke (Kate Elliott ) These men and women are pretty decent in this film, but you will definitely recognize them from the other things they’ve done in the past. I love sci-fi films like this because I always try to recognize the cast if I can because they aren’t always widely publicized. These people I did know from The Raid/The Raid 2, Next Goal Wins, and 30 Days of Night. They all made an impact on me throughout the films, a little over 1 hour, 30 minute, runtime.

With any sci-fi movie I watch, I look for the authenticity of the spacecraft, clothes, and overall realistic nature of the film itself. I was genuinely amazed by how good everything was as far as those things went. Throw in some of the best cinematography I’ve seen all year so far by Richard Bluck, and this movie looked incredible. The reds and purples of the ships’ lighting thrown in with the planet’s browns and orange hues gave this film a  very authentic feeling.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it while I was watching the movie and afterward. This is genuinely one of the best films I’ve seen all year from that perspective. 

I have to give Flying Lotus some credit. He did use some different methods in trying to tell his story. He uses POV in one scene, and in another, one character uses a VR headset. These sequences help break up the monotony of the story, but video recordings on  board the ship help Gonzalez’s character to figure out what is truly going on leading up to her current moment on the ship. The video recording shows the true nature of what’s going on. It wasn’t very pretty for her or the crew on board the ship or its landing vessel. 

With any film dealing with aliens and / or some kind of possession, you have makeup on the actors. This movie has quite a bit of makeup on its actors’ faces. Due to the current situation they were in, this was a great way to show what happened to them. They looked pretty ugly with all the makeup on their faces. It was very effective in showing how badly things have gotten for this crew and especially Paul and Gonzalez. Things got bad. 

Ash is clearly a sci-fi film that deals with some kind of alien species that causes the crew to go crazy and attack each other. Gonzalez and Paul’s characters are the last standing, but the mystery of what truly happened is the key to the story. The mystery and the investigation were interesting to me in the end, but the technical aspects of the film were the things I was most interested in. The cinematography,  makeup, and different ways the director used to tell the story were truly the achievements in this movie. Gonzalez and the rest of the cast are fine. This isn’t a great sci-fi alien film, but it’s not bad either. It’s better than most that have come out in recent years.

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen