PR in the Philippines

(SeaPRwire) –   If there’s one thing to say about Thrash, it turns Crawl into a work of genius by comparison. Back when Alexandre Aja’s 2019 alligator horror flick came out, plenty of people—myself included—wrote it off because it’s set in a Florida basement, and let’s face it, Florida homes rarely have basements. But looking back, that’s a tiny issue next to the countless logical gaps and obvious contradictions in Thrash. There are so many, it’s hard to list them all, but a couple stand out: “Why are these houses flooding at such wildly different speeds?” and “Did she actually use a piece of damp wood to cut her own umbilical cord?”

Naturally, hoping for logic from a movie that includes the line “Mommy’s gotta fight some f*cking sharks” — which, by the way, comes right after that umbilical cord scene — is a fool’s errand. The same goes for having high expectations for a film that was initially meant to hit theaters via Sony Pictures but was quietly moved to Netflix once filming wrapped. The only real shock is that it was ever planned for a theatrical release in the first place, since Thrash’s flaws start with its script. Just like long-time coastal Carolina residents who stay put during a Category 5 hurricane without even boarding their windows, those studio execs should have seen the disaster coming.

Even though it was filmed in Australia, Thrash is set in Annieville, a made-up town in South Carolina. Most folks there are smart enough to load up their cars and evacuate when warned. But this setup always presents a problem for movies like this: How do you keep enough characters around to fill the story without making them look like fools for staying? In Thrash, the characters’ decisions to stay are explained by a mix of agoraphobia, vague “work commitments,” and a cruel, drunk foster dad who keeps saying “it’s just a little rain” right up until a tiger shark eats him.

But let’s backtrack a bit. The agoraphobic character here is Dakota (played by Whitney Peak), who hasn’t been able to step outside without panicking since her mom died a few years ago. Her uncle, Dr. Dale Edwards (Djimon Hounsou), who just so happens to be a shark expert—conveniently enough—stops by to check on her early in the movie. But for the most part, Dakota is totally unready for the approaching hurricane as she hides out in her mom’s house watching Dance Moms (which is currently on Disney+, another clue that the film was sold to Netflix after it was finished).

That makes sense—grief can make people do strange things, even those who know how to use a spear gun. But Lisa (Phoebe Dynevor), who’s nine months pregnant and driving a small blue Fiat like the city transplant she is, has no such reason: “I’m from New York! We don’t get hurricanes!” she argues at one point, which is completely false. This is another detail that was in the script and could have been fact-checked way before filming, editing, color grading, test screenings, and finally sending it straight to streaming. Writer-director Tommy Wirkola is Norwegian, sure, but that’s no excuse—excuses, excuses.

The actual reason Lisa is late to leave, or why the three siblings (played by Ayla Browne, Stacy Clausen, and Dante Ulbadi) are trapped in a flooded kitchen for most of the film, is so Wirkola can include over-the-top moments like Lisa giving birth in the water (total sepsis risk, gross) or the siblings blowing up sharks with dynamite wrapped in T-bone steaks. Even though these scenes are better (or at least more skillfully) set up and filmed, they never quite reach the level of absurdity seen in movies like Sharknado.

This is Thrash’s contradiction. It’s too silly and illogical to be a good film, but it’s also too polished and professionally made to be genuine B-movie schlock. It does have its highlights, though: The scene where sharks first arrive, lured by blood from a crashed meat truck, and eat three people who were trying to help, while Lisa screams in her flooded Fiat, gives the kind of giddy fun that makes people watch cheesy creature features like this.

But those moments aren’t the same as the big, intentional campy scenes that are supposed to be highlights—all of which fall surprisingly flat. Even Lisa’s iconic line gets lost like roof tiles in a storm; I had to pause and rewind because I thought I misheard it the first time. All shark movies have some built-in fun—who doesn’t love watching hungry sharks rip off someone’s arm, especially if they had it coming?—so Thrash is worth watching if you know not to take it seriously. And if you like feeling smarter than the movie you’re viewing, this one makes it easy with such a bad script.

Or you could simply watch Crawl instead.

Thrash is currently streaming on Netflix (and Crawl is available on Pluto TV).