‘Thrash’ Can’t Capture the Thrills or Fun of Shark Movies
At one point or another, most genre fans are always willing to get down with a good shark movie. The shark movie has virtually formed into a whole subgenre of its own, with many films playing within its confines of providing either sharp B-movie thrills or cheesy campiness that rolls with the absurdity. Thrash is the latest shark movie to attempt to provide a healthy dose of both tones in the span of a quick and easy 80 minutes. This sounds like a fun time on paper, but the film is woefully unsuccessful in most avenues.
Director Tommy Wirkola’s Thrash is a largely “sauceless” affair, if you will. It has most of the pieces you’d associate with a fun shark B-movie but rarely executes them at even an average level. This leads to all its elements, from its central premise to its shark killings, being largely generic without any of the innovation to build upon its reheated ideas.
You’d expect Thrash to be the delicious type of trash that’s not necessarily good for you but gives you enough electric energy to come out with a positive experience; but you instead leave with the taste of a thousand other recycled films, and Thrash doesn’t even know what tones of the genre it wants to fully commit to.
Thrash’s central premise might sound vaguely familiar
The story takes place in the city of Annieville, South Carolina, and follows four central groups of characters throughout its brisk runtime. This includes a young woman named Dakota (Whitney Peak) still reeling from the recent loss of her mother, Dakota’s uncle Dale (Djimon Hounsou) a marine biologist who specializes in sharks, and Lisa (Phoebe Dynevor) a pregnant woman from New York. There’s also a trio a foster kids Dee, Will, and Ron who are under the care of their latest neglectful parents.
A large category 5 hurricane is headed towards Annieville, and for one reason or another, our characters aren’t able to evacuate the coastal town before it decimates everything in its path, completely flooding the city. As if a record-setting storm wasn’t enough, the chaos is raised even higher when the large array of flooded seas gives way to hungry sharks taking the water as a new feeding ground.
Each of our characters now must survive in ways they never imagined to escape their potential peril; with Dakota helping Lisa to give birth, the foster kids needing to escape their flooded house, and Dale leading a team to journey to Annieville by boat and save his niece.
Why this horror lacks most of the bite you’d want from a shark movie
The logline of a coastal environment getting flooded by a monster hurricane, leading to aquatic predators lurking in the waters, is quite literally the same premise as 2019’s Crawl (minus the crocodiles, plus the sharks). But this wouldn’t matter as much if Thrash brought anything remotely interesting to the world of shark films.
It’s odd considering that Tommy Wirkola isn’t a bad director, and his action stints like Violent Night provide enough silliness and wonderfully bloody action to match. Unfortunately, Thrash is severely lacking in both any remote thrills or delightful goofiness, opting generally to shockingly take itself way too seriously.
How the more tension built set pieces of the film are telegraphed aren’t bad in concept, but they either end up predictable in their jumpscares or lack any real ferocity. This causes the lack of danger for the main cast members a significant issue. The film is just not mean enough to warrant any palpable reactions of fear when it tries to evoke them; everything is so meticulously telegraphed that even when there is a relatively bloody kill, it’s the least surprising outcome imaginable.
This only makes moments where the film attempts to bring a far more campy tone to its scenes, with incredibly dumb needle drops and cheesy one-liners, even more bizarre. There’s obviously a world where both tones can co-exist to create a wonderfully fun experience, especially in the format of the shark film. But the movie never commits enough to the simple, tightly paced tension or mindless fun to make it remotely memorable from its contemporaries. There’s a stretch in the literal last ten minutes of the film where it’s able to have more fun with itself through the cheesiness, but it ultimately proves to be too little, too late.
Final thoughts on Netflix’s Thrash
In all fairness, the subgenre of shark movies has known plenty of historic ups and downs. There’s been worse shark films than Thrash released ever since Jaws changed everything over 50 years ago. That doesn’t mean that there can’t still be fun innovation and absurdity to be had when making a film centered on sharks. Yet, Thrash ends up on the subpar end of the totem pole.
Thrash lacks the bite, delightful silliness, and tight thrills it needed to make it anything more than a recycled version of far better shark movies. While it may appease those looking for cheap and quick action, this one is destined to be lost with the rest of the unused shark chum at the bottom of the sea.
Also check out: Ready or Not 2: Here I Come Review: Double The Gore, Double The Lore
