They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it only arrives there through a pre-established set of priorities. As the most collaborative artistic medium known to man, movies inherently have a lot to parse, but that doesn’t stop their viewers from championing or dismissing a flick based on a solitary attribute or two. To fully appraise a feature like Ash, with its esteemable highs and confounding lows, is to ignore the truth of how most people take in their filmed entertainment. Seeing the forest through the trees is less important when you’re only here to contend with a single, particular sapling, and director Steven Ellison has sure sown a variety of seeds into the soil he’s been tilling. Hopefully the one you’re invested in has been properly watered and received its fair share of sunshine. It’s far from a given.

For instance, those inclined to greet any and all new horror/sci-fi offerings with open arms will be delighted, at least at the onset. The proposition of a stranger waking up in a strange, grisly land is no less enticing for its lack of novelty, writer Jonni Remmler wagering that our shared familiarity with the apparatus serves as a cozy, leering introduction rather than a tired repurposing of old tricks. When Riya (Eiza González) finally rises, she meets the slain bodies of her space-faring crew, massacred and strewn about the bollows of an intergalactic vessel. It’s a queasy-making sight to behold, made worse by the fact that our heroine is unable to recall the events that preceded their demise, or her entire life story for that matter. Responding to a distress call, orbiting astronaut Brion (Aaron Paul) descends to fill in the gaps, though he’s far from the only invasive force with a keen interest in these earthings’ mission to chart new inhabitable territory amidst the stars.

There’s only so much a movie can do to alienate a dedicated, niche audience, but Ash does its damnedest when it comes to its scratter-brained screenplay. You wouldn’t call it convoluted; there are precious sleight of hands that an extraterrestrial amnesia thriller can pull off on an audience who’s seasoned in looking for clues. It’s more of a nuts-and-bolts issue, with the movie’s brisk 95 minute runtime showing an unwavering preference for momentum over basic legibility. Important pieces of information are glossed over with eager haste, the rudimentary who’s, what’s, and why’s of the proceedings cast aside in favor of shock and awe. Refusing to be bogged down by the dutiful tying of loose ends has its benefits, but abandoning the practice wholesale makes the entire enterprise wobbly. Not everyone’s a handyman, and it’s probably okay to miss a washer or two when you’re building something this big. Dismiss them all together, and you’ve got some shoddy architecture.

This will only matter for those harboring a fondness for clean lines and tidy housekeeping; if you’re here for the vibes, Ash has got you covered. As an electronic musician whose attentions have only recently found their way behind the camera, Ellison, who both records and directs behind the pseudonym Flying Lotus, has a deft touch with spectacle, especially of the B-movie lineage. Mounted on a shoe-string budget, his sophomore feature is stuffed to the gills with psychedelic, kaleidoscopic imagery, to the point where you start wondering if a foreign substance found its way into your pre-movie meal. The druggy interludes and insert shots are buttressed by gloriously grainy views of otherworldly terrains, nodding to the Fantastic less-is-more classics of yore, be they Voyage or Planet. 

The performances are molded using similar materials, but their transference into the modern multiplex is far less successful. Exactly what Paul is going for with his grave, bug-eyed demeanor is anyone’s guess, all shouts and flailing arms, but FlyLo ought to have been more clear that they weren’t making Apocalypse Now. González offers a more palatable flavor, but the movie seems entirely more interested in her appearance than her abilities. Part of this is baked into the premise of following a protagonist with memory loss, but the actor’s make-up and framing make no mystery as to her appeal. Cinematographer Richard Bluck might be more interested in cutting an iconic shadow than simply falling victim to the male gaze, but the results are the same, encasing an action star in amber.

Of course this will be of little concern to anyone who’s just looking for a gross night out at the flicks, a focus group that Ash’s closing half hour is certain to please. While blood and guts are present from the get-go, the third act here is gory delight, mixing practical effects with digital wizardry to arrive at something genuinely deranged and admirably disgusting. Credit goes to the crafts team for turning stomachs at their will, as well as Remmler for providing such an ample playground on which to explore their gifts. His script does take some shortcuts to get there, but when ease of use is your mooring principle, anything is on the table. 

Sitting on the shoulders of Alien and The Thing is one way to make yourself look taller, and Flying Lotus is determined to benefit from our fondness for the Nostromo and its passengers. In a world littered with sequels and remakes, there’s something almost charming about straightforward homage, but Ash forgets to bring the allegorical allure. There’s none of Alien’s distrust of mega-corporations, and not a hint of The Thing’s exploration of  the self; it gestures toward the surfaces of those two classics without engaging with their innerworkings. No matter; if you’re here for the splatter and the hallucinogens, Ash already has your number, and if plot, character, or acting are more your flavor, it’ll have lost you from the start. Ash is the definition of a mixed bag, but if you’re only rooting around for one thing in the first place, everything else is just in the way.