Boots Riley has occupied so much of the discussion about successful musicians-turned-filmmakers, but it’s time we start including Flying Lotus in that conversation, as well. FlyLo, aka Steven Ellison, has just as distinctive and unique a visual eye, and he turns it towards sci-fi/horror with Ash, a twisted head trip fueled by anxiety and paranoia that’s sure to attract fans of this popular subgenre.

The film stars Eiza Gonzalez as Riya, a lone astronaut on a faraway planet, having just woken up with no memory of how she got there. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that her crewmates and dear friends are all dead, with no idea how it happened. We see flashes of their happier times, but also nightmarish glimpses of their deaths. It all feels vaguely David Lynch-ian, this absorbing murder mystery.

Aaron Paul enters the picture as Brion, who claims to be a fellow crewmate who just happened to be away when the deaths occurred. Our guard is immediately up, partly because of Brion’s convenient alibi, but also because Paul is just naturally kind of sketchy. Perhaps it’s his experience with another psychedelic sci-fi enigma, HBO’s Westworld.

Ash keeps us disorientingly off-balance with FlyLo’s surreal visuals of the planet’s rocky, desolate surface, and the filmmaker’s self-created musical score. Jonni Remmler’s screenplay does its part by laying out the clues in tiny morsels, and of course, nothing is quite as simple as it seems. Everyone isn’t who they say they are. That much was always to be expected. The real fun is in getting there, and floating like zero gravity through the thick air of dread that FlyLo has created, making the most of a minimal special effects budget. This is also the first time that FlyLo has given himself a significant role in front of the camera, joined by co-stars Iko Uwais (The Raid actor getting a lot out of a brief fight scene), Beulah Koale, and Kate Elliott.

The space-horror subgenre has a lot of past gems that Ash clearly draws some inspiration from, such as the films Event Horizon, Sunshine, and the video game Dead Space. FlyLo’s influences run deep and they are all reflected in this, the biggest cinematic project of his short filmmaking career. While Ash isn’t necessarily breaking new ground, it’s a haunting, visceral entry that reflects FlyLo’s rare voice.

Ash opens in theaters on March 21st via IFC Films and Shudder.