Ash

If you're into it, you're into it. Let's just say you're not: turn the picture off and let the soundtrack play.

In this age of expensive and overwrought world-building, it’s Ellison’s experiential care with well-worn material that delivers the goods.

A hypnotic star child of out-there wonder and internal corruption and chaos.

There are worse sci-fi/horror movies, but 'there are worse movies' is never the praise one likes to think it is. The word 'Competent!' rarely makes it into a movie’s marketing materials no matter how accurate it is.

The film’s seductive and trippy aesthetics help mask the overall dullness of this two-person chamber drama.

Light on answers but heavy on style.

In space, no one can hear you snore.

Ash might work for some, especially if your bong is more than just a conversation piece. But Lotus needs a stronger screenplay, and doesn’t quite lean into the film’s aesthetic or exercise its intellect enough to draw in the teetotalers.

A work destined to elicit little appreciation, yet captivates with its concepts, its treatment, and its powerful evolution. [Full review in Spanish]

Flying Lotus's second feature-length film, Ash, is a one-part imagination and two-parts a derivative addition to the genre hybrid that Alien built.