Thrash begins with a warning of a Category 5 storm heading to Annieville, South Carolina. There is an apparent panic in the town. People are advised to pack their things and move to higher ground before it makes landfall.
As the storm closes in, a young woman with agoraphobia named Dakota (Whitney Peak) finds herself unable to leave her deceased mother’s house. Meanwhile, siblings Dee (Alyla Browne), Ron (Stacy Clausen), and Will (Dante Ubaldi) are forced to shelter with their horrible foster parents, Billy (Matt Nable) and Rachel (Amy Mathews). Somewhere in town, a heavily pregnant woman named Lisa (Phoebe Dynevor) tried and failed to evacuate in time. She is trapped in the half-deserted town when a fallen tree blocks her only way out.
Soon enough, the hurricane hits and the storm surge destroys the town’s sea wall, flooding everything in its path from trees to buildings. A blood tanker is also destroyed by the flood, leaking animal blood into the floodwater. This creates a massive problem as it lures bull sharks into the town. And as we know, bull sharks are considered one of the most aggressive and dangerous shark species to humans.
Dakota retreats to the second floor to escape the rising flood while she waits for rescue. Her uncle Dale (Djimon Hounsou), a marine researcher, enlists a visiting TV news crew to help him reach her. On the other hand, Dee, Ron, Will, Billy, and Rachel are caught off guard by the strength and depth of the flood and find themselves desperately looking for a way out. Meanwhile, Lisa’s car gets washed away, leaving her stranded with sharks circling around her.
Now time is of the essence. The flood continues to rise, and as it does, a large great white shark appears to be making its way toward Annieville. If they fail to get out of the water, death is certain.
The first thing you need to know about Thrash is that there’s a thematic bait-and-switch. It opens with the promise of climate disaster. We see people literally panicking, and we hear that the government is closing streets. There’s even a countdown timer flashed on screen to signify the impending storm’s landfall. But once it happens, the hurricane becomes a backdrop. The film pivots almost immediately to a story about sharks eating people.
To me, it’s a puzzling decision. This could’ve been just a story about our relationship with nature. It could’ve been just about storm surges, failed infrastructure, and the human decisions that make hurricanes more deadly. With all the research the team behind this film conducted, they could have informed people about the steps we need to take before, during, and after a flood without sacrificing the tension and action inherent to the story.
It is then disappointing that it decided to become a shark film. It loses its depth with that transition, because it reduces the threat from something vast and systemic to something you can outswim. What makes it even more disappointing is that this feels like a choice rather than an accident. I mean, they literally manufactured the shark attack via a blood tanker truck.
Furthermore, this film feels like three movies stitched together. That is not a terrible idea, but if it is not an anthology film, there’s an implicit promise that the different threads exist because they need each other and that they’re building toward something larger than any single story could achieve alone. Thrash never delivers on that.
Adding to all this are the film’s logic. The logic of the film only applies when the plot needs them to. Let me show you some examples:
The sharks maneuver freely in chest-deep floodwater. But we all know that the water is too shallow. It is almost impossible for a great white or bull shark to realistically move or attack.
There’s Billy, who magically survives for hours underwater in open floodwater surrounded by sharks. He is kept alive purely because the plot needs him for a later confrontation with the siblings.
And then there’s Dakota, who falls asleep in the middle of Lisa’s labor.
None of these are small oversights or slip-ups. They are symptoms of a weak script that puts tension and spectacle before verisimilitude. If you’re going to make impossible things happen, don’t invite the audience to take it seriously. At the very least, commit to being a dark comedy.
People have joked that Thrash is trash because of wordplay, and the film is actually kind of… Trash. It starts with enough promise, but as things get further and further away from the initial setup, it becomes very hard to justify the patience it asks of you. If you’re the kind of viewer who likes sharks eating people, then congratulations, you got yourself a new film. But if not, you’d be better off watching something else, because everything about this film belongs in a dumpster.
1/5
Now showing on Netflix.