‘Thrash’ review: Tommy Wirkola’s movie shark ate

Like being unsung Australian horror film DiarrheaNetflix’s It’s thrash you know tsunamis aren’t your worries at least after a Category 5 hurricane hits in the movie. Sharks (yes, sharks) are joined by the latest installment from writer/director Tommy Wirkola (A Violent NightDead Frost), and it’s a proper nail-biter.

With nightmare-inducing cinematography, increasingly flooded and crumbling sets, high-risk situations, and strong performances from Djimon Hounsou, Whitney Peak, and Phoebe Dynevor, It’s thrash it earns its place in the long, storied history of shark survival movies.

What It’s thrash about?

Climate disaster movies come in all shapes and sizes It’s thrash (mainly produced by Don’t Look Up‘s Adam McKay), Wirkola leans into the extreme climate impact of a warming planet without directly addressing it. Climate change is not causing extreme weather; Climate change is increasing the intensity, frequency, and duration of extreme weather events. And there’s nothing more extreme than watching a Category 5 hurricane completely overwhelm the town of Annieville, South Carolina, with high winds, devastating flooding, and sharks swimming down Main Street. (I’m not here to test the scientific accuracy of this film.)

Here, we meet several citizens left behind: Whitney Peak as Dakota, who turns off the weather reports to watch videos of her recently deceased mother; Phoebe Dynevor as Lisa, a meatpacking factory manager who could give birth any day now; and Stacy Clausen, Alyla Browne, and Dante Ubaldi as Hanson the Olsens, three siblings whose not-so-evil parents see the storm as “just a little weather.” Elsewhere, Djimon Hounsou is on the road as oceanographer Dale, who sees bull sharks enter the storm, seeking shelter in the fresh water. He is also Dakota’s uncle.

We love the Olsens.
Credit: Ben King / Netflix

You’ll really enjoy these characters as they find themselves suddenly huddled on their kitchen benches, perched on their roofs, and on the brink of a job as the floodwaters rise. It’s no easy task to cast characters you don’t want to see as shark bait in a movie like this, either It’s thrashThe cast carries it well, despite Wirkola giving us little information about them. The body of the Peak does not miss a beat, to combine Ninja Warrior obstacles with convincing anxiety symptoms, Hounsou’s apparent authority gives the film legitimacy, and as for Dynevor, scenes of workers don’t happen like this every day. (And yes, I hear that the music in Lisa’s scenes is Internet fodder, but I’m not mad about it.)

It’s thrash a brutal deluge of visual effects and jaw-dropping cinematography.

This scene moved me.
Credit: Ben King / Netflix

Although It’s thrash a high-budget Netflix movie, the nail-biting situations Wirkola throws down are simple; usually, it goes from A to B across shark-infested waters. As a partner contained the horrors of sharks The Reef, Open the Water, The Shallowsand more recently Under Paris, It’s thrash it pushes its characters into survival situations where just walking through a small body of water seems unthinkable. Here, Wirkola stays away from the supershark Meg or The Deep Blue Seakeeping his marine predators life-size and emphasizing their terrifying behavior. However, he sticks to certain shark movie conventions, such as the characters being suddenly dragged to the bottom of the water and the camera angles of the shark.

Production designer David Ingram created an ever-flooded and devastated city, an impressive and heartbreakingly realistic vision of disaster – and made for some heart-pounding action sequences. Director of photography Matthew Weston’s images are like horror movie posters, from the teenagers moving in the kitchen doorway as a shark walks under the roof to the SOS sharks circling below. Each additional minute plays with shadow, scale, and suspense to heighten the danger, before editor Martin Stoltz throws us back into the action. And about action, It’s thrash throws the entire final visual effect into a sequence that resembles the outbreak of a shocking storm, which destroys the entire town of Annieville in a matter of minutes.

Make no mistake, It’s thrash he is cruel. Bull sharks, in particular, make for brutal villains, with the animal’s signature violent tendencies shown through some gruesome work from visual effects supervisor Bryan Jones and his team. (At the risk of sounding like a bull monger, bull shark attacks are extremely rare).

If you like shark movies, It’s thrash it’s a solid thriller with a talented cast and visuals that kept me hooked. Wirkola’s ability to balance horror, action, and comedy remains a feat worthy of praise. Jump into it.

It’s thrash will premiere on Netflix on April 10.