‘Ash’ (2025) Review: A Horrifying Imitation
Original horror movies are making a resurgence. But that doesn’t mean that every movie is well executed. Flying Lotus’ debut feature film, Ash, is a gory horror movie set in space, where a lone crew member wakes up to find dismembered bodies of her teammates.
Following Aliens and The Thing, which follow a survival-esque-type story, she has no recollection of what happened to her crew and must figure out what happened to her crew members. A psychological horror movie set in the most dangerous place with creepy figures and unreliable memories, Ash explores horror elements from its predecessors.
Riya (Eiza González) wakes up at an outpost called Ash. She is covered in blood and completely in shock, with no memory of what happened and how she got there. Riya doesn’t even know her name. She walks around the station to find clues and discovers her crew members violently slaughtered. Another crew member, Brion (Aaron Paul), arrives at the station on a shuttle, claiming to be her teammate who stayed behind and came to check when he received a distress signal.
Brion and Riya must return to their spaceship before the outpost runs out of oxygen. But there are questions on her mind: What happened to her crew members? Riya sees flashes of memories of the crew: Adhi (Iko Uwais), Kevin (Beulah Koale), Clarke (Kate Elliott), and Davis (Flying Lotus). As Riya’s memories return, there is a possibility that she might be responsible for her crewmates’ horrible slaughter.
For the most part, Ash uses splashes of colour and abrupt cuts to visualise Riya’s scattered memories. Shots of shadowy figures and nightmarish scenes show the main character’s experience as she tries to recollect past events. She’s also trying to figure out whether Brion is lying about who he is.
In some ways, Flying Lotus’ vision for this movie is not only gameplay but adding different horror elements that portray her mental state by using angular shots and jumpscares. There is a strong visual style, but sometimes it looks a bit disorienting. It cannot figure out which influential horror movie it wants to be. Perhaps that’s why Ash suffers from being a perfect horror movie.
Ash’s entry into the science fiction horror genre is fresh. If the movie had spent less time portraying Riya’s mind and colourful visuals, there would have been room to present new ideas instead of rehashing the tired elements used before in the genre. Ash had the opportunity to reach its full potential. But it’s close to the imitation of its predecessors. Unfortunately, Flying Lotus is not sure of what to do with the horror elements and doesn’t have a memorable ending.
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