A One Mann’s Movies review of “Thrash”. (2026, 2.5*, 15).
I mean, I should really be reaching for my 1-star rating on speed-dial for this offering on Netflix. It is TRULY dreadful. But it manages to achieve that rare feat in my eyes: it ‘jumps the shark’ (literally in this case) by being a disaster movie – like 2014’s “Into The Storm” – that is “so bad, its good”!
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
Annieville, South Carolina is in the direct path of a Category 5 storm: a storm that breaks the coastal levees and brings with the storm surge a host of hungry sharks!
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC website: “Injury detail, language, threat”.)
Talent:
Starring: Phoebe Dynevor, Whitney Peak, Djimon Hounsou, Alyla Browne, Dante Ubaldi, Stacy Clausen, Sami Afuni, Tyler Coppin, Adam Dunn, Chai Hansen, Matt Nablem Andrew Lees.
Directed by: Tommy Wirkola.
Written by: Tommy Wirkola.
Running Time: 1h 26m.
Review:
Positives:
- It’s hilarious: but in a totally unintentional way! The script is extraordinarily clunky. Literally EVERYTHING referenced in the first reel of the film is brought back in a cheesy way later in the film:
- the pregnant Lisa (Phoebe Dynevor) who wants a natural water birth (check!);
- a tanker conveniently full of blood and guts (check!);
- the home video where the dead mum of Dakota (Whitney Peak) teaches her to shoot straight by resting her gun on a hard edge (check!);
- the foster dad refusing to let his foster kids have steaks from the basement fridge (check!).
- Of the scattergun acting on show, it is Whitney Peak that impresses the most playing the agoraphobic grieving daughter Dakota. Peak has been in a lot of “nothing” features since she played Idris Elba’s daughter, Stella, in the very good “Molly’s Game“. Hopefully this might get her noticed to be trialled in something a bit better again.
Negatives:
- As I say above, most of these negatives just add to the positive of it being extraordinarily bad in a good, cheesy, sort of way:
- Dialogue between shark expert Dr Dale Edwards (Djimon Hounsou) and a news crew (reporter Joe Sprinkle (Andrew Lees) and cameraman Doug (Sami Afuni)) is standout bad! “Are you sure this is safe?” Edwards is asked. “We’re heading up the I17, in a Zodiac, in a category 5 storm, with sharks on the loose…. I’m pretty fucking sure that doesn’t count as safe”! (Big LOL.)
- Well-munched arch-foster-villain Billy Olson (Matt Nable), after being roundly told by his foster kids to ‘go and get fucked’, makes a truly ludicrous return!
- At one point, Dakota (Whitney Peak) goes to rescue Lisa by climbing out of her bedroom window and then leaping down onto the roof of a floating shed. Yet after she rescues her, you simply see the pair – including the heavily pregnant Lisa – climbing back into the bedroom window! The pair of jet-packs were clearly left on the roof tiles outside!
- Dakota announces at one point that she “needs to round up anything that runs on batteries and vibrates”! (Well, what’s an agoraphobic young woman to do on her own alone in a house? Other than obsessively cleaning her teeth… obviously… what else did you think I meant?)
- Back to Dr Edwards again: he gets to take a quick sojourn from their desperate rescue mission to recount a ludicrous ‘Hippo story’ from his home village in Africa.
- The water birth, when it happens, is splendidly unlikely. Like, why wouldn’t you want to have a bloody birth in the middle of a flooded high street surrounded by hungry sharks? And cutting the umbilical cord with a bit of sharp wood LOL! The line “Mummy’s got to fight some fucking sharks” is another snort-worthy cracker!
- The film lacks much of any tension. You just know when some nasty shark action is about to happen that an ‘intervention’ will occur. The film steals these interventions from other, much better films including “Jurassic Park” and “Jaws”.
- The film ends with a whimper rather than a shout. There was an opportunity, with the whole Lisa / Dakota / Baby story arc, to end it with a much more dramatic and darker outcome. That’s the direction I would have gone in. Instead, sadly, writer/director Tommy Wirkola (who previously did the twisted Christmas film “Violent Night“) opted for a dull and twee Hollywood ending. Utterly unmemorable.
Summary Thoughts:
In many ways this is an utterly mindless film and a complete waste of celluloid. But I do have a grudging respect for it in being so appalling that it had me hooting with laughter, far more than most so-called comedy films that I’ve seen this year. One for a very drunk bunch of students with some late night kebabs and a six-pack of beers to enjoy!
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzyOsNyDkbM.
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