Month: February 2026

Get off the planet, or don’t! Makes no difference to me.

Directed by musician Tiny Lotus, Ash is an artsy, indulgent amalgam of sci-fi/horror plot points (from Alien, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers) that never coalesces into anything terribly original or memorable.

Riya Ortiz (Eiza Gonzalez) is the only survivor of a crew of terra-farmers on KOI-442, a dark, distant planet nicknamed Ash, due to its volcanic activity. Her fellow farmers have been murdered and Riya’s own memories of the traumatic incident are bloody, strobe-light fragments, that Tiny Lotus thoughtfully inserts every few minutes or so.

She is soon joined by another crew member, Brion (Aaron Paul), who’s dropped in from the observation satellite after receiving a distress call. Is he here to help or does he have his own agenda?

Ash provides a teachable moment for aspiring directors. If you’re going with a tiny cast, a little time spent on character development would help immeasurably. Riya and Brion are cyphers in space, and might as well be Nancy and Sluggo for all we care.

A 50-50 chance that one of these nonentities has been infected by a vague assimilating presence from the planet’s defense system isn’t really bringing anything hot and tasty to the table.

Add to this a halting narrative told in flashback, a meandering pace, low lighting (when it’s not strobed), and an intrusive techno score, and you have ample reason to skip it.

Tiny Lotus has his moments as a visual stylist, creating a believably unstable alien landscape. But there’s nobody home, dramatically speaking.

When TL reheats a trope from a better movie, it’s just a bitter reminder that Alien, The Thing, etc, are superior examples of dynamic genre filmmaking—that we could be watching instead.

Whether or not Ash is a complete waste of time depends on one’s fondness for a concept that’s already used up several miles of celluloid, namely, who, what, where is the alien menace and who can I trust?

Trust me, you’re not missing anything interesting on planet Ash.