Thrash: New Netflix film releases its first trailer

Thrash was first released by USA TODAY, written and directed by Tommy Wirkola and puts an environmental spin on a fearsome film subgenre.

The action is centred on a coastal South Carolina town that gets hit by a Category 5 hurricane. The levees break, massive waters flood in, and a bunch of bull sharks swim into town looking for a meal.

The movie followed various characters who have to deal with storm surges plus the hungry fish, including a pregnant woman (Phoebe Dynevor), an oceanic researcher (Djimon Hounsou) and his agoraphobic niece (Whitney Peak), plus a trio of foster siblings (Alyla Browne, Stacy Clausen and Dante Ubaldi).

Dynevor was “very excited” by the fact that her character, Lisa, is “giving birth the whole movie and is also up against a hurricane as well as sharks,” she says. Filming the movie offered the “Bridgerton” actress her own “great challenge”. “We shot in Melbourne in winter, so it was cold, and we were in very cold tanks shooting outside, so I would wear two wetsuits underneath my pregnancy belly every day.”

The filmmakers settled on bull sharks as the film’s primary antagonist because they are smart, drawn to dirty water, hunt in packs and will “actively” attack people. “They’re aggressive predators that don’t really discriminate that much,” McKay says. “Other sharks accidentally bite humans – they think they’re seals or whatever – but if a person’s in the water, bull sharks will come up and bite them.” (He teases another kind of shark has “a significant cameo” in “Thrash.”)

Practical effects sharks were used in filming, as well as shark pieces, but Dynevor’s scenes mainly utilise digital creatures. Instead of fish, she worked with “some stunt guys with tennis balls, and that was about it,” she says with a laugh. “Not quite as scary. In fact, a little bit funny. It definitely required some acting.”

McKay has long been a connoisseur of fine fin-de-siècle flicks. “Jaws” is “the granddaddy. No one will ever approach ‘Jaws,’ ” and “Open Water” is No. 2 on his personal shark-movie list. He’s hoping “Thrash” places for fans in the next “five or six others that are pretty darn good.”

Adam admits that it feels a little more complete now that he has a shark movie to his credit.

“I’m one of those kids who, from like age 9 on, was a bit obsessed with sharks. And my wife always jokes I know way more than I should know about sharks,” says McKay, producer of Netflix’s new survival thriller “Thrash” (streaming April 10). “It’s that primal fear. It’s that awe of any apex predator.”

His production company tried to do projects with global warming as an element, and Wirkola came to McKay with the idea for “Thrash” five years ago. “At the time, the premise seemed like a very heightened climate scenario,” McKay says. “But the crazy part is that in the interim, the idea of dangerous predators being pushed toward human civilisation is now pretty much happening every day.”

But he promises that “Thrash” is still a “popcorn movie” at its heart. “There’s a little sprinkling of vitamins in there with the very stark reality of how quickly the planet is changing and the weather.”