I mean, nice job wearing so many hats at once, chief. But all those extra voices you might have had on the set could have said, “Dude, this is not making any sense.”
It is a gruesome story of rural North America centering around the murder cases committed in order to possess this anachronistic box, who’s contents we will leave a mystery, as Mr. Langley likes to do.
“Ash” starts out with a chase and execution scene taking place in wintry woodland while a horseback rider pursues with an over and under shotgun.
“Y’can’t outrun fate,” our killer says to his frontier victim before acquiring a box that looks over a hundred years ahead of its time.
More than a century later, a man whose dog dies a brutal death, buries the pet and digs a perfectly preserved wooden box from the ground. The man then proceeds to make the mistake of having a coin from the box appraised, and boom all of a sudden, an entire daisy chain of murderers and their relatives descend upon the man, his wife, and anyone who might have the slightest idea of where the box is buried.
We witness a thug (Nick Biskupek) and his moll snorting cocaine off the box, but that’s not what’s in it.
The thug’s nephew Blake Canning shows up with a pregnant partner ready for the fun and games with a request for “work” as well.
A laconic loner cop (Kayla Meyer) enters a crime scene where a man was left for dead after being shot. He shows signs of life but remains mute. She steps into the room, gradually figuring out whatever is going around.
Now because most of them go unnamed, and I will not bother trying to look them up, I will have to decline. Their performances, thanklessly range from indifferent to inept as cited in the credits below.
This is one of those movies that’s tough to pin down because the timeline overall appears to meander. In one of the scenes, that cop/sheriff stumbles across a snow-covered field with a crucifix and a young man drives up towards a house somewhere during early fall. What’s shocking is that once inside, it’s snowing outside the windows while the characters’ breathe fogs up as they engage in a little lick the pistol barrel sexual foreplay which takes things further out of the norm.
The cycle repeats itself even its “revenge” motto that Confucius quote about when you set on a quest for vengeance, remember to “dig two graves” appears off. The first series of murders and tortures we observe have no connection to that. This tale is powered by greed and would be if there were any wheels on it.
As basic as it may seem, “Ash & Dust” fluctuates between incomprehensible and reminiscence of a fifty car pile up and there is hardly a minute of the remaining 83 minutes of footage that could pass for coherent rational watching.
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