ASH (2025) is a Hollywood Sci-fi horror film that was released on March 21st 2025 and is currently streaming on Prime Video. Written by Jonni Remmler, and Directed by musician and filmmaker Flying Lotus, it has a runtime of 1 hour and 35 minutes. The movie follows an astronaut who wakes up in a research station on a foreign planet with seemingly no memory of who she is, what she’s doing there, or why the place is littered with gruesome corpses.
Premise
The film opens with a rotation of multiple gruesome clips and jump scares, introducing us to this foreign planet where everything takes place before finally landing on a woman who jolts awake, confused.
Upon getting up and walking around for a bit, she discovers multiple dead bodies – all of which seem to have been killed brutally. She attempts to step outside and look for help, but quickly discovers that this planet’s atmosphere lacks oxygen and thus quickly runs back inside the facility. While medicating herself and taking a shower, we discover that she has no recollection of anything, not even her name or why she’s in the facility.
"Who am I...?"
When she steps out of the shower, she experiences a quick flashback, where it is revealed to her (and us) that her name is Riya Ortiz, and the corpses littered across the facility used to be her crew mates on a reconnaissance mission to this foreign planet (comically nicknamed Ash by one of them) to discover if it is habitable for humans to evacuate to from a decaying earth.
She continues to explore the facility until she is notified by the facility of an intruder attempting to get inside via the air lock.
Preparing an ambush for whoever it is, Riya is taken aback to find a man who calls himself Brion. Claiming to know her, he asserts that he was drawn here by a distress call—one he insists originated from her. She remembers the mention of Brion from little flashback and believes his claim.
Realising that Riya truly doesn’t remember anything, Brion begins to explain that she, alongside the now deceased crew members (Clarke, Adhi, and Riya’s boyfriend Kevin) inhabited the planetside station while Brion stayed in the second station in orbit outside the planet’s atmosphere to maintain contact with earth. They begin to converse about what happened to Riya and her crew.
With the help of a few more flashbacks, they theorise that one of the crew members, Clarke – who is the only one not found dead, or at all for that matter, had been infected by some alien disease which had caused her to have a psychotic break and go berserk.
With oxygen levels depleting, Brion and Riya make plans to leave the facility and reach the orbital facility so that they may return to earth and report their findings. However, Riya, who is unsatisfied with their inability to find Clarke, experiences more flashbacks of members of the crew being brutally murdered–by her own hand.
"Riya...it hurts..."
And things begin to take an even darker turn when she finds a damaged drone with footage of the crew’s last expedition and the events that led to the first death.
The rest of the film spans bone-chilling flashbacks, and horrifying plot twists, as Riya slowly discovers the real truth behind her crew’s demise, all while trying to make it out alive.
Cast and Performances
ASH consists of a rather small cast, including:
- Eiza González as Riya Ortiz
- Aaron Paul as Brion Cargyle
- Iko Uwais as Adhi
- Beulah Koale as Kevin
- Kate Elliott as Catherine Clarke
- Flying Lotus as Shawn Davis
First of all, a standing ovation is owed to Eiza González for her performance as Riya. Despite her being the only character for a significant amount of time and the entire movie centered around her, she carries it almost effortlessly. I understand how difficult it is to be in the driver’s seat of what is essentially a one woman show, single handedly carrying the general vibe of the film and subsequently the audience’s reaction on her shoulders. But she takes on the challenge, and does a stellar job of it too. The way she portrays her character’s initial confusion and paranoia, all the way to her horror and realization is so smooth and flows so well with the vibe of the movie.
I love the character, Riya, as well. Despite this being a surface level film with seemingly no symbolism or moral lessons, she brings a level of depth to it that saves the film from being another superficial alien movie. And despite her questionable choices at certain points of the film (when your crew says leave, you leave, not mess around with very dangerous looking alien parasites, damnit), she still draws sympathy and encouragement from the audience. However, with an ending like that, one can only wonder if there will ever be an end to her trials and tribulations.
What I Liked about the Film
First of all, the cinematography. Good gracious, the visuals are astonishing. And my research tells me that they didn’t even have much of a budget for the project (literally YouTube-learned CGI, a video camera and a dream), which only makes it that much more impressive how they were able to conjure up such on-screen magic (there is the forest scene that is apparently a dream-like hallucination from our main character and it is so beautiful, I wished to physically be there, even for a second).
And extra props to whoever was in charge of the jump scares and gore. They were very well placed and actually contributed to the Storytelling, thus being able to capture the true essence of a horror film, not just mindless body mutilation for shock value (as most horror films have become these days). I also applaud the pacing of the film, achieving an almost perfect balance between too fast and dragged on. I like that not everything is revealed to the audience, and we are equally finding things out alongside our heroine, it plays a good part in immersing us into the film and thus avoids being overly predictable.
Also the music. I learned that Flying Lotus, the director, not only stars in the film as well but was also responsible for the score and music choices as well.
Trust the director to know exactly what he wants his movie to channel.
The music, as little as it was, made a huge impact and added a lot of emotion and ambience.
Final Thoughts
This is such an underrated film that did so much with so little, and while I understand that it might not be for everyone, it still deserves solid recognition. I’m not even a horror fan myself, and I still found myself drawn into the story and visuals (I strongly advise not to ingest any psychedelics or become intoxicated before or during the film, lest you’re in for an interesting experience.)
I rate ASH (2025): 4 out of 5
