Aliens have invaded SXSW with a number of new titles befitting the theme at this yr’s pageant, and director Flying Lotus‘ Ash actually serves a cosmic horror that’s out of this world.
Eiza González stars as astronaut Riya, who wakes up on a distant planet with no reminiscence of who she is, how she received there or why her total crew has been slaughtered. When her crew mate Brion (Aaron Paul) solutions a misery name from their orbiting house station, issues begin coming into focus. As the pc warns her of an uncommon lifeform.
The film wastes no time stepping into the motion as we open on a bloodied Riya waking up with precisely the identical quantity of information as we’ve got concerning the bloody chaos surrounding her. The bottom’s laptop system malfunctions, constructing the strain by means of sound and lighting because the oxygen provide quickly drops.
Not far beneath the stylized nod to extraterrestrial horror are not-so-subtle themes of people colonizing land the place we don’t belong, radicalizing its individuals by means of disinformation, and the final silencing of disenfranchised people on the lookout for hope whereas pitting them towards one another to distract from the true risk.
“Let’s not f*ck it up this time,” Riya says in a single flashback of idealistic instances together with her crew as they imagined what can be their “one small step” quote amongst discovering their new residence.
In the meantime, Riya doesn’t keep in mind Earth in any respect, whereas those that neglect historical past are certain to repeat it. Her flashbacks current all through the movie as these trippy visions with a discombobulating first-person POV.
Lotus delivers loads of sturdy nods to Alien, serving virtually as an homage to the 1979 movie that redefined the horror sub-genre, in addition to a touch of John Carpenter’s The Factor (1982) and many extra that I’ll go away to the better-qualified horror nerds to smell out.
The rating consists by Lotus, a music producer in his personal proper, offering a vibe-y expertise complemented by a visually hanging technicolor depiction of outer house and a blue desert planet that would maintain humanity’s future … if somebody hadn’t gotten there first.
Though among the results look like AI-generated, it virtually looks like a aware selection to enhance Lotus’ imaginative and prescient of intergalactic horror, during which it’s typically troublesome to differentiate actuality from a nightmarish fever dream.
A follow-up to his 2017 anthology Kuso, Lotus has discovered his Ripley in González, who positively earns her “remaining lady” badge with this position, serving a fantastically terrified and impassioned efficiency, full with a high-octane battle sequence or two and loads of darkish relevance.
Title: Ash
Competition: SXSW (Headliner)
Distributor: RLJE + Shudder
Launch date: March 21, 2025
Director: Flying Lotus
Screenwriter: Jonni Remmler
Forged: Eiza González, Aaron Paul, Flying Lotus, Iko Uwais, Kate Elliott, Beulah Koale
Working time: 1 hr 35 minutes
