ASH (2025)

 

 Ash is a somewhat dystopian science fiction film set on another world that the human race is hoping to be able to terraform and relocate to. We get told all of that information about a quarter of the way into the story after the mystery of the horror has already begun. The way the Story begins is simple a young woman wakes up from a deep sleep and discovers that the ecosystem that she lives in is filled with dead bodies and signs of violence that she has basically no memory of.

The film is a hybrid version of Solaris, alien, and the thing. Ultimately there are about seven actors in the film but for 90% of the movie they're only two that take up screen time. The woman named Reva, as flashbacks to some of the events, and begins to suspect that what happened might be her fault. File into her ruminations, another character shows up played by actor Aaron Paul, who clearly knows Reva, but was not at the station when whatever disaster befell it took place.

At First the movie looks fairly low budget. The sets are not much more complicated than a series of rooms that have been dolled up with some light fixtures and a few props to suggest something more futuristic. And the film is clearly something that was done on a budget. In the second half of the film though a few special effects show up that suggests that they were saving their money for a little bit more production value. A couple of models and some CGI add a little credibility to the situation. We also get a few special effects makeup sequences that are pretty good. 

The main problem with the film like this is that we are dealing with an unreliable narrator, and we all know why she's unreliable. Also, nearly everything that we see at one point become suspect, and we wonder if we are looking at something that really happened or if it is just a projection of her consciousness. In the end it does turn out to be something of a monster movie, but it's trying to do it in a way that is different and a little bit more cerebral. I think the ambitions outstrip the ability of the script to deliver this kind of story. The movie isn't bad, but it isn't very compelling either and by the time we get to the end it's easy to feel detached from what's going on. There is also attacked on conclusion that makes no sense but his design to create a sense of irony at the end of the story.

The director of the film is also responsible for the music, I get the impression that he is a music personality who is dabbling in the film world. It's not that he's on talented, but he's not experienced enough to make this film more interesting than something to be consumed and almost immediately forgotten, in spite of the film's ambitions. I suspect that this movie was largely made for streaming purposes, and it received a token release either because of the actors involved or to placate the director. Either way it turned out, it was a reasonable Monday evening, but again I'm not going to remember this very long.