Opening with one of the most played-out tropes in movies and videogames - the protagonist waking up in a situation where everyone is dead and they have no memory of what happened or who they are - Ash is a dumb, dull sci-fi-horror flick which makes pulpy throwback B-movies disreputable again.
Eiza González (Three Body Problem) is Amnesia Girl Riya Ortiz who awakes in a structure filled with several dead people who died violently as evidenced by the smashed heads and knives protruding from their bodies. The lights are flickering, a computer voice is announcing system failure, it's basically the aftermath of a Diddy freakout party. (Hiyo!) She wanders out of the structure and finds herself on the surface of an alien world with a kaleidoscopic sky. She begins to choke on the atmosphere and barely manages to make it back to the structure. She doesn't realize you need an space suit to go outside.
She begins to stabilize the base functions and experiences flashback jump scares of the violence that occurred as well as calmer times where she and the box-checkingly diverse crew joked about their mission. Then there's an alert that someone is in the airlock. She lays in wait and when the intruder enters she pounces. This is Brion (Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad) and he claims to be the astronaut who was in orbit and came down when contact was lost.
As Riya tries to piece together what's real and what's not, it becomes a guessing game for the audience as well because it's one thing to have an unreliable narrator, but the movie keeps showing contradictory versions of what happened to the point I stopped caring because it felt as if the script by Jonni Remmler was just making things up as it went along with no consistent narrative logic then director Flying Lotus just slathered John Carpenter stylistic tributes all over the mess. I pretty much figured out the main twists in the first half-hour, leaving another hour for them to play out plus the random spins they attempted.
If not for the presence of the main stars, if you'd told me this movie was made in the early-1980s I'd almost believe you but for the presence of flat-screen displays. The lighting is mostly lurid reds and blues, reminiscent of Creepshow though that was mimicking EC Comics pulp style.
The production design has that cheap movie look with bizarre set decorations like the freaking upright piano sits in the common area. Wait, what? A PIANO?!? A critical mission with the future of humanity hanging in the balance and they ship hundreds of pounds of wood & metal furniture? Not a lightweight electronic keyboard, but a full piano? We see a character playing a trumpet (silently) in a flashback memory, but never is the piano but decoration. That's the level of dumb Ash is operating at along with the Alien inspired space suits with helmet glass so fragile a single punch from a woman cracks them.
González is OK in her performance considering the role gives her little to do but be confused and sad. Paul is equally adrift with nothing to do. The rest of the cast is just there to appear in flashbacks and die.
As a Shudder title, it will eventually show up on that service, but don't bother. Watch Event Horizon instead.
Score: 2/10. Skip it!
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