Thrash (2026) is written & directed by Tommy Wirkola. It stars Whitney Peak, Phoebe Dynevor, Alyla Browne, Stacy Clausen, Dante Ubaldi, Djimon Hounsou, Tyler Coppin, Sami Afuni, Adam Dunn, Chai Hansen, Annabel Mullion, Bert LaBonte, Sian Luxford, Amy Mathews, and Josh McConville. The film follows a pregnant woman (Dynevor), a stranded teenager (Peak), and a trio of orphans (Browne, Clausen, Ubaldi) who find themselves hunted by a school of man-eating bull sharks after a category 5 hurricane floods their small coastal town. 

The youngsters who play the three orphan siblings lay it on a little thick with their chicken-fried southern accents, but other than that, there isn’t much to criticize about any of the performances. That being said, it often feels like there’s no tonal consistency from one set of characters to the next. The subplot featuring Dynevor and Peak’s characters leans into straightforward suspense, while everything involving the 3 orphans is notably more campy. The third subplot featuring Djimon Hounsou’s character is easily the silliest of the bunch, which only becomes more problematic once it becomes clear that it does nothing to serve the plot. The entire thing focuses on Hounsou’s character as he tries to reach his nephew (Peak), but only finds her once the sharks have already been defeated. What’s the point of following the character for so long if he’s going to do absolutely nothing? Again, none of the performances are particularly bad; everyone just feels like they’re in a different movie.

The script does a great job of giving each set of characters their time to shine, but what’s odd is that the three subplots never actually converge in a meaningful way, let alone at all. It’s as if Wirkola wrote three separate shark-themed stories, but couldn’t quite figure out how to combine them into a single narrative. As a result, the film leaves you with a feeling that there’s some unfinished business. How do these stories connect, or, at the very least, how do they work to serve one another? I couldn’t give you an answer if my life depended on it. 

All of the shark-centric mayhem should satisfy the basic needs of the subgenre’s diehard fans, but that’s about as far as it goes. The kills are appropriately bloody and intense, but nearly everything else centered around the sharks is as derivative as these kinds of films get. It borrows something from nearly every shark film you can think of. This does end up being a lot more fun than if it were to borrow from only one or two shark films because it achieves a sort of ‘greatest hits’ effect. That said, the film doesn’t have an original bone in its body, as evidenced by the script’s lack of even one narrative surprise. As soon as you’re introduced to the characters, it’s clear exactly who will live and who will die. This is even more disappointing when considering Wirkola’s previous cult classic, Dead Snow (2009)–one of the wildest, most unpredictable zombie films of the 2000s. 

Overall, this is an extremely generic, shoddily constructed shark thriller that should just barely do the trick for diehard fans of the subgenre. Everyone who’s on the fence about this one can skip it without a second thought. Look, I’m a simple guy. Sometimes I just want to see bloodthirsty sharks rip things to shreds. If that’s all you want, this will deliver. In terms of everything else, well, you’re out of luck. C