How refreshing for a disaster <\/a>film<\/a> to really<\/em> flex its R-rating, not just with blood and guts and bone-baring stumps (sharks, man), but characters not afraid to say \u201choly fucking shit\u201d when the time calls for it or \u201che got my fucking arm\u201d when a shark, you know, gets an arm. These are the little touches, the sparkles, the cherries on top, and audiences might not realize how important they really are until they see them on the screen, even if it is the small screen that so often hosts Netflix<\/a>\u2018s original films.<\/p>\n Such are the most immediate charms of Tommy Wirkola\u2019s<\/a> \u201cThrash<\/a>\u201d (formerly known as both \u201cBeneath the Storm\u201d and \u201cShiver,\u201d terrible titles all). A mash-up of classic disaster flick (read: hurricane) and creature feature (again, sharks), \u201cThrash\u201d is the latest in an odd string of action films that inject wild animals into already fraught situations. Like \u201cBurning Bright\u201d (hurricane and tiger) and \u201cCrawl\u201d<\/a> (hurricane and alligators), Wirkola\u2019s latest is set during a natural disaster (what is it with hurricanes, you guys?) and only amps up the action with the addition of toothy baddies.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sharks are, of course, a much more natural fit for all of this than tigers<\/em>.<\/p>\n And nature? Well, she\u2019s pissed. The film, written and directed by Wirkola, plays a bit of its hand early, as the its title cards tell us both a) it\u2019s produced by Adam McKay<\/a> and Kevin Messick and b) maybe <\/em>climate change is to blame for what we\u2019re about to see unfold, if only because audiences would be pretty blinkered to not wonder about its opening card, which notes the increased intensity, frequency, and duration of hurricanes since 1980. Huh! Wonder why!<\/p>\n Set in the fictional coastal town of Annieville, South Carolina (the film was shot on a lot in Australia, and it\u2019s pretty impressive by those metrics), the film opens with the massive Hurricane Henry mere hours from making landfall. The film is a beast (it could be called a Category 6, if that existed, one side character muses), and it\u2019s only gathering more strength as it goes. <\/p>\n In its path? Young Dakota (Whitney Peak), who has barely left her house since her mother died and doesn\u2019t seem emotionally able to evacuate just now. There\u2019s also heavily pregnant Lisa (Phoebe Dynevor<\/a>), whose unseen dirtbag ex recently abandoned her and their soon-to-be-born son to become a DJ. And there\u2019s a trio of young siblings (\u201cLeviticus\u201d breakout Stacy Clausen<\/a>, plus Alyla Browne and Dante Ubaldi) whose shitty foster parents can\u2019t even be relied on to proper feed the sibs, let alone care for them during a hurricane. <\/p>\n Just outside town, marine biologist Dr. Dale Edwards (Djimon Hounsou<\/a>, always able to add gravitas wherever he goes) is tracking both the storm and <\/em>his niece, who just so happens to be Dakota. Also <\/em>incidentally: Dale\u2019s speciality is sharks, but even he\u2019s baffled to see an uptick in shark attacks during the onset of the storm. Whatever could those big baddies be doing? (Long, dramatic pause for the film to also introduce, stay with us here, a shark that Dale knows<\/em> and has long been tracking, who seems all too eager to get in on the action.)<\/p>\n \u201cThrash\u201d whips us through all these introductions and connections with lightning speed, all the better to get down to business (hurricane, sharks) and maximize the film\u2019s blessedly tight running time of 86 minutes. How these characters will connect \u2014 or don\u2019t, as is the case with the Olsen siblings, who never meet any of the film\u2019s other characters, oddly enough \u2014 follows the expected beats of the genre. Lisa basically washes up on Dakota\u2019s doorstep, while Dale and his team attempt to make their way to a flooded Annieville. Who will live? Who will die? Who will be eaten (perhaps even repeatedly) by a shark? <\/p>\n For all its dead-expected outcomes, \u201cThrash\u201d does still find plenty of tension in both big and little moments. The Olsen kiddos trying to close their front door to keep the sharks out is just as well-shot and grimly hilarious as Lisa readying to give birth as the floodwaters rise. And Wirkola doesn\u2019t shy away from injecting some truly human drama into his shark hurricane movie, as \u201cThrash\u201d also lightly interrogates the impact of disaster on everyday people. Who stays? Who helps? Who really needs to learn how to swim? For all its potential silliness, real characters populate these bloody waters.<\/p>\n Thank goodness for that, because the sharks themselves \u2014 even Dale\u2019s big ol\u2019 great white, who we learn later on is pregnant, just like Lisa<\/em>, which made this critic pray for some truly silly plot movements that did not pan out \u2014 don\u2019t offer much in the way of personality. Mostly, they jump out of the water for a chomp here, a chomp there, a chomp everywhere, before swimming off to do more biting elsewhere. <\/p>\n Still, \u201cThrash\u201d looks quite impressive for a film shot in a literal parking lot, and the small-town of Annieville sure looks believable enough (and believably flooded). Overhead shots are mixed with what appears to be real footage of out-of-control hurricane action, and it\u2019s all foreboding and scary enough to not even need <\/em>finned baddies swimming in and out of frame. But, yes, frankly more shark action would be welcome in this film about <\/em>sharks. As a basic disaster flick? \u201cThrash\u201d works, and offers up less than 90 minutes of admirably silly and occasionally chilling action, even if it could stand to take a bigger bite out of the story.<\/p>\n \u201cThrash\u201d is now streaming on Netflix.<\/em><\/p>\n Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0<\/em>reviews<\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0<\/em>Subscribe here<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"'The](\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Ed-Solomon-Steven-Soderbergh-BTS-on-The-Christophers.jpg.webp?w=300&h=168&crop=1\")
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Grade: C+<\/h2>\n