Matthew Lomas
Matthew LomasOf all the movies that I have been looking forward to during the first quarter of 2025, Ash made the top list. On a fluke, I was recommended the trailer for this film a few months ago by YouTube’s algorithm. It promised a fascinating story, trippy visuals, and an acting duet between Eiza Gonzalez and Aaron Paul. So did this film deliver? Absolutely! Let’s dive in.
For those who don’t know, Ash is a film that focuses on Riya (Eiza Gonzalez), a botanist turned astronaut who wakes up on the station she serves on with severe memory loss. She soon finds that everyone on the station is dead and one of her crewmates is missing. As she is trying to put the pieces together, she encounters Brion (Aaron Paul), a fellow astronaut who has responded to her distress signal and wants to save her. With a limited time window for the two of them to make their escape, Riya must act quickly if she wants to determine what happened to the crew and why she can’t remember anything.
While I am not usually a fan of horror films, especially when they are on the big screen, this is a movie that I could not stop watching. The traditional jump scares that popped in from time to time annoyed me at first, but as I began to watch more and more of the film everything began to click. The jump scares aren’t solely there for us to get frightened for a moment. They are also there to put us closer in mind to what Riya is seeing and experiencing.
Suffering from both memory loss and post-traumatic stress disorder, these moments help us get into her head and understand her state of mind throughout the entirety of the film. The editing and visual effects of this film continually knock this disorientation that would be natural for anyone going through what Riya is.
The one thing that you want in any good horror film is a continuing sense of dread and tension. The last film that truly checked that box for me was David Dastmalchian’s Late Night with The Devil. While that film had a continuing sense of dread and tension, Ash does this to a different yet equal degree. I don’t want to give away anything, but the way that the film controls those two qualities is truly amazing!
Between the soundtrack, the pacing, and the effects, Ash manages to lead a tightrope act from beginning to end. I understand that this film will not be for everyone as it requires a bit more attention than the average horror film that is put out these days, but you will definitely find enjoyment from it if you can put the pieces together. If you happen to be a horror movie aficionado who doesn’t scare easily, then I can at least tell you that you will have fun putting together the mystery that plagues Riya right up until the end.
While I do not know what the budget was for this movie, there is only one scene that I can think of where you can tell that they weren’t working with a whole lot. I will not spoil the scene, but it features the most significant bit of CGI with live-action elements and only occasionally feels weird. This is primarily because the scene in question happens in low light and the darkness causes your brain to fill in a majority of the missing details. In the rare moments of light during this scene, the CGI doesn’t come off as great. However, it is serviceable for the story and is not something that remains on screen long enough to draw you out of the film.
Eiza Gonzalez and Aaron Paul make a surprisingly great duo. While Eiza Gonzalez easily carries the film during the parts of the film when she is alone, Aaron Paul does a great job of helping her out when he is on screen so that not all of the movie solely rests on her shoulders. I would honestly love to see the two of them work together as they have great on-screen chemistry. The two characters of Riya and Brion balance each other out, as Riya is an optimist who believes in solving the mystery of what happened while Brion is a realist who just wants to get off the planet before whatever happened to the crew doesn’t end up happening to either of them.
Overall, I believe that Ash is the best film that I have seen all year! While it is hard to say if this will make it into the top ten by the end of the year, this is definitely a film that will stick around with me for a long time. There aren’t a whole lot of theaters that are showing this film but I would highly recommend going to your local one if they have it and giving this movie a try. If you are looking for any other disaster stories, consider checking out Keiran McEwen’s review of Atomfall right here.
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501 Ash
0.00
Pros
- Excellent Cast
- Wonderful Sound Design
- Well Written Story
Cons
- Some CGI problems
