Ash & Dust

If you need to understand this film's plot, follow closely, these simple steps.

Copy the entire 83 minutes, snag some freeware from the Internet that allows the movie to be played in reverse.

Toss some popcorn into the microwave.

Delete the file you just created, the popcorn is way better, believe me.

This feels like another vanity project, with a well worn plot that they actually still manage to mess up.... There is absolutely no depth to any of the Characters, so much so that you do not feel any empathy for anyone. Nothing is explained, and the story goes nowhere, and actively ignores what may have been interesting sub-plots....

It took me three tries to watch this movie, it was very boring and took almost 30 mins to get to something that was worth listening to. And the quality is almost low budget.

30 minutes nothing happened, and when something starts to happen you realize that there is nothing to see... The director tried to make it special with soundtracks of church and with lots of scenes without talking. The whole movie is just dying people because of a box.

Conclusion: do something better with your life.

This is a slooooow burning film. It's so slow that I'd remove the word "burn" and replace it with "kinda glows then fizzles and dies."

Ash & Dust struck me as a first film (i.e., debut feature length for director) and it wasn't marketed aggressively so I am giving it some slack. There are some promising elements, but they never coalesce into a holistic entity.

Acting is pretty good for the most part, but a few actors are not meant for that career and I won't name names.

Finally, in case anyone is wondering why there are some 8- 9- and 10-star reviews, simply click on those reviewers' user names and you'll see that if they aren't one-review accounts, they've all reviewed the exact same movies including "Hyde", "Angie: Lost Girls", and "Devil Djinn" on almost identical dates. IMDB needs to start charging money for the ability to post reviews or do what Yelp! Does and actually police the fake ones. This is the main reason the site is useless for deciding whether to watch indie flicks these days.

If I had the chance again, Ash & Dust would get a hard pass from me.

3/10 for story plus 1/10 for decent cinematography = 4/10, just barely watchable.