Disaster happens…

While Thrash has all the ingredients to be balls to the wall, survivalist shark thriller, it ultimately plays a little tame compared to other entries in the genre.

Placing us in the midst of a catastrophic hurricane that has laid waste to a small coastal town.  If the torrential rain, Gail force winds, destruction, debris and chaos weren’t enough for the survivors struggling to survive, they encounter a problem they never expected; a pack of hungry sharks.

Here’s the thing, the ingredients for something gonzo in the proud spirit of the shark movie are all here.  A Writer/Director who has unabashedly thrown us into battle with Zombie Nazis in the dead of winter, an inexpensive cast with one moderate level name actor, an inexpensive location….and well…sharks.

Initially off loaded to Netflix by Sony Pictures, Thrash doesn’t match the high octane insanity of Netflix’s previous shark entry; Under Paris back in 2024 and it just feels kind of plain and unfortunately is a little dull.

This is surprising considering some of Tommy Wikorla’s previous work where he’s not been afraid to get a little gonzo, even under the constraints of a “studio” picture.

To his credit, it’s lean and mean with its set up keeping the exposition to a minimum and getting us straight to the action with the three sets of protagonists we have to follow.  It all moves pretty fast getting the town being flooded with the storm walls busting and a pack of blood thirsty sharks coming in.  Everything is well staged and it all looks great, but there’s just one glaring problem.

We barely see the actual sharks…

The shark movie isn’t the genre where less is more, more is actually more.  The violence is there, we get the occasional flash and plenty of blood in the water but the gore is actually pretty minimal and the tension is fairly subpar.  We’re never really invested all that much in anyone’s struggles because while the danger is there, it never actually feels palpable.  They likely should have cut one of the stories to get us to care while ramping up the actual blood.

Some of you will recognize Phoebe Dynevor as our lead and the nine month expectant mother in the wrong place at the wrong time and she does a fine job here working with Whitney Peak who’s stuck at home grieving the recent loss of her mother.  They’ve got good chemistry and play off each other OK; Djimon Hounsou is playing her uncle (he’s the moderate level name actor we mentioned above) who also happens to be an oceanic researcher (of course he is) and is in the other story with some local news reporters.  The 3^rd story with three foster kids and their abusive foster parents has some fun visual beats but is pretty extraneous and unnecessary.

While Thrash is a decent enough diversion to watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon if you want some sharks in the middle of a disaster, but there’s other entries into the storied legacy of the shark movie that give you more tension, more gore and ultimately more fun.