A hurricane floods a South Carolina town, filling it with sharks after a truck full of blood rips open. Tommy Wirkola’s 2026 nature/animal attack film drowns in unfulfilled promise. Now on Netflix.
It’s not a secret I’m a B-movie fan, reveling in silliness and blood; purposely odd and off situations that lean into a biting awareness. Done right, they knock it out of the park; done wrong, it’s a tough watch. Thrash is somewhere in the middle, in the frustration of almost working but failing to follow through on something worth its time.
The continual threat of a storm and/or rising water is a dangerous situation to start, and lends itself to tense storytelling, not to mention the great effect work of the practical nature of wind and rain causing chaos as set-pieces fill with water, putting pressure on the performers. Often, these have another level added. The Poseidon Adventure is a classic in surviving the upside-down sinking boat. Hard Rain is often incredibly silly, but I like this small-town robbery in a sinking town. Hurricane Heist does the same but bigger and dumber (I mean that in a good way, the best sort of ridiculous). And Alexandre Aja’s Crawl finds a woman trying to get away from alligators. Thrash goes the Crawl route with more people in a small town surviving more sharks. Unfortunately, Crawl blows Thrash right out of the water. Aja’s Crawl was tight and tense with a variety of increasingly impressive sequences. Thrash sets up the action, offers some moments, but plateaus. If I may be so punny, treading water.
On a technical level, it works. The actual flooding, what it causes, and how things move is impressive. The effects work is well done. As the waters rise, cars and trucks shift and cause a tear. As the meat truck filled with blood (yes, really) is caught up, it’s a great wave of destruction. Some of the set pieces, a pregnant woman getting out of a sinking house, that’s cool. Work has been put into making it look nice. The sharks look good, and the cinematography is excellent across the action beats. So much great underwater work, ratcheting up an impressive tension separated from the overall film.
But everything else around it wallows. After a while, Wirkola puts up a dam in rising action. Stakes aren’t raised. More sharks don’t show up. People get safe and stay so, mostly. Even when there’s still plenty of time in the 78-minute (before the credits) movie. Stagnation keeps the two halves of the story from meeting, leaving it hanging in an odd way, like they cut the real climax. The lack of push is weird with Wirkola’s track record. The Dead Snow movies and Violent Night (which cracked my top 10 of its year, sequel this Christmas!) revel in their concepts, delivering violent over-the-top action flicks, fully embracing themselves. Thrash seems embarrassed to be what it is.
Outside the action, the character bits are lacking. After the evacuation of the town, we’re left with a few trying to hang on. A pregnant woman, Bridgerton’s Phoebe Dynevor, leaves work late after the business made the staff stay. This is weird since only one other employee is on the way out: the guy driving the blood truck. Played by Sabrina’s Whitney Peak, a young woman depressed after her mother died, barely noticing the danger (her movie uncle is Djimon Hounsou, the only one who acts as one should in this sort of film, getting some of the best moments), and three siblings, fostered by abusive Southern stereotype assholes. They all have something to set up, but none are as interesting as they ever so slowly go through the motions. The performances are unenthusiastic, not helped by terrible dialogue and exposition: the “as you know Bob” sort, where people tell one another what they already know for our sake. It’s unnatural and stilted.
Thrash is a disappointment. Underdeveloped set-ups barely pay off. Some sequences and effects look good, but the remainder of the film around them fails to engage. Tommy Wirkola’s Thrash doesn’t work, drowning in its premise and execution.
My suggestion: double feature Hard Rain and Crawl; between the two of them, you have the movie Thrash wanted to be.
Thrash premiered on Netflix on April 10th.