An old-fashioned disaster movie meets sharksploitation in Netflix’s “Thrash”, an insanely silly and at times bafflingly bad survival thriller that still makes for decent throwaway entertainment despite its litany of shortcomings. But while there is a definitely a little fun to be had with it, you can’t help but feel that “Thrash” could have and should have been a lot more bonkers than it ends up being.

“Thrash” is written and directed by Tommy Wirkola. The Norwegian filmmaker has some noteworthy directing credits on his resume including 2009”s “Dead Snow”, 2021’s “The Trip”, and most recently 2022’s “Violent Night”. While all three are solid films, none of them set an especially high bar, which makes it even more disappointing when “Thrash” fails to reach it. Instead, Wirkola’s latest feels like a rushed patchwork of ideas, sewn together with only a few bare threads of story.

As a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane barrels towards the small Atlantic coastal town of Annieville, South Carolina, a select group of locals, who (for various reasons) didn’t heed the evacuation warnings, find themselves in perilous situations. The fast-moving Hurricane Henry makes landfall with surprisingly little visual fanfare. Instead the real danger hits when the ocean levees break and the storm surge sends flood waters rushing into town.

Among the residents fighting for survival is Lisa Fields (Phoebe Dynevor), a pregnant woman from New York trapped in her car after not making it out of town in time. There’s Dakota (Whitney Peak), an agoraphobic young woman stuck on the top floor of her flooded home. There’s a trio of siblings left alone thanks to their abusive and brainless redneck foster parents. And there is Dakota’s uncle, Dr. Dale Edwards (Djimon Hounsou), a marine researcher rushing to Annieville to rescue his niece.

But the thinly-sketched survivors quickly discover they have more to fear than the rising flood waters. Far more deadly is the shiver of blood-craving bull sharks that enter town with the ocean surge. They add a preposterous yet admittedly entertaining twist that Wirkola has a lot of fun with. But here’s the thing – the sharks turn out to be more interesting and at times noticeably smarter than the vast majority of the human characters.

Most of the film’s problems seep from the script which puts these people in dangerous situations as a result of their own dimwitted choices. It would be one thing if this played like a straight comedy. But while there are moments of humor, most of the story is told with a straight face which doesn’t do the characters any favors. It also doesn’t help that they are handed the kind of ludicrous dialogue that no level of talent can make sound good.

“Thrash” is a movie that finds itself stuck in-between the better films it could have been. It’s a case of not fully committing to any particular vision. So it ends up all over the place, fumbling through its attempts at being thrilling, scary, and/or funny. To its credit, there are some impressive uses of both practical and digital effects which Wirkola really leans into during specific scenes. But the movie desperately needs more – namely more gonzo chaos, the slightest bit of coherence, and characters that we can at least care about.