Eiza González

Aaron Paul

Iko Uwais

Kate Elliott

Beulah Koale

Flying Lotus

Neill Blomkamp

Jonni Remmler

Nate Bolotin

Matthew Metcalfe

Bryan Shaw

Tom Blackwell

Maxime Cottray

Maile Daugherty

Lesley Hansen

Adam Riback

Nick Spicer

Aram Tertzakian

Richard Bluck

Melissa Kostenbauder

Miranda Rivers

Sam Storey

Gui Taccetti

Deirdre Cowley

Carly Marr

Teone Taare Te Tuakana

Guy Campbell

Terri Kilmartin

Dylan Coburn

Sarah Sketcher

Natalie Tsuchiya

Joe Whitby

Nick Baldock

Corrin Ellingford

Steve Finnigan

Laird Fryer

Andrew Moore

Stefanie Ng

Ben Sinclair

Gareth Van Niekerk

Ryan Munt

George Port

Mackay Crawley

Steve McQuillan

Mark Trotter

Sam Bailey

Ethan Cardus

Roydon Christensen

Abby Clearwater

Giles Coburn

Cameron McLean

Tommy Park

Jennifer Raoult

Judith Campbell

Samantha Morley

Alana Cotton

Ruby de Beus

Dan Graham

Matt Wilshere

Melissa Lawrence

Science Fiction

Horror

Thriller

XYZ Films

Echo Lake Entertainment

GFC Films

IPR.VC

Brainfeeder Films

Finland

New Zealand

United States of America

English

terraforming

violent death

cynical

brain surgery

distant  planet

mind parasite

spacesuit

absurd

critical

alien parasite

baffled

farcical

Manuel São Bento

FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://movieswetextedabout.com/ash-movie-review-eiza-gonzalez-commands-the-screen-in-a-sci-fi-thriller-of-highs-and-lows/

"Ash doesn't bring anything new to the genres it blends nor does it explore its themes in particularly thought-provoking ways, but it still delivers an intriguing experience, driven by an immersive atmosphere and a truly captivating lead performance.

Eiza González's magnetic presence alone makes the movie worth watching, and there are technical aspects worthy of praise that contribute to an engaging experience. A film of extremes, where its best moments shine as much as its flaws, but one that ultimately earns a recommendation."

Rating: B-

Brent Marchant

Exploring the vast, uncharted reaches of outer space may be challenging enough when we have our wits completely about us, but imagine how much more difficult it would be if we tried to do so without any recollection of where we were or how we got there. So it is for Riya (Eiza González), an astronaut who wakes up on a mysterious, ash-covered planet to find herself being the only survivor of her crew. As she moves about her ship, she finds everyone else has been killed, and she has no memory of how they got that way. In fact, she doesn’t appear to readily recognize anyone, either, and her reaction is one more of curiosity and confusion than of shock and horror. She thus wanders aimlessly about the corpse-strewn spacecraft trying to get her bearings when someone suddenly appears outside the ship’s airlock. And, when the stranger comes on board, she lunges at him to protect herself, only to find that it’s her crewmate, Brion (Aaron Paul), who had apparently been off on a reconnaissance mission when the carnage went down and who now, besides Riya, is the only other survivor of the mission. But, like all of the deceased crew members, Riya doesn’t recognize Brion, either – that is, until bits and pieces of her memory start coming back to her. Still, even with those nuggets of recollection, she’s still unable to pull it all together in terms of who she is, why she’s there and the nature of the crew’s mission. To say more about that mission, though, would reveal too much, but, suffice it to say, that it’s not terribly difficult to figure out, especially for anyone who has seen the offerings in the “Alien” franchise (particularly “Prometheus” (2012) and its sequel, “Alien: Covenant” (2017)). And therein lies the problem with director Flying Lotus’s third feature, outing – its inherent predictability (to me, the cardinal sin of filmmaking), with its derivative and unoriginal narrative. To its credit, in an attempt to distinguish itself from these cinematic predecessors, the film seeks to make up for its innate deficiency by amping up the horror aspect with an array of graphic, visually inventive images (though, thankfully, the film manages to restrain itself just enough to keep it from becoming grotesque or gratuitous) along with a modest touch of camp (though this release could have used more of this if it really wanted to make a mark of its own). Nevertheless, despite the strength of these attributes and some mildly impressive special effects, “Ash” simply doesn’t have enough of what it takes to make it stand out on its own as groundbreaking sci-fi cinema. Ultimately, if you’re willing to settle for a halfway decent space-based horror flick reminiscent of material that you’ve likely seen already, you might want to give this one a look when it comes to streaming to kill time on a lazy weekend afternoon. However, if you’re like me and demand more out of movies in this genre, you can probably skip this one and feel comfortable that you probably haven’t missed much.

Official Trailer

Official Teaser Trailer

Ash( 2025)

A new mindbender by Flying Lotus.

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A review by Manuel São Bento

Written by Manuel São Bento on Wed Mar 19 2025

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