In "Thrash," The Trump Supporter Dies at the End
Thrash, a new entry in the Shark Week genre, gleefully eats a Trump supporter while the people we care about live
Sometimes, I need a break. I often find that a good book doesn’t relax me enough. My mind almost always races, so I want to write more, not less.
Trigger Warning: More spoilers than a listeria-infected commercial lettuce farm.
Note: Also, this is a real movie review, not one of my satires.
To cure this, once in a while, I’ll look for what I call a good, bad movie. I love movies in general, which is why my regular readers see so many satirical movie reviews involving the mad, clownish presidency we are all being subjected to.
But, sometimes, I need that one movie that requires nothing from me. Something I can stare at and just be stupid.
Netflix’s “Thrash” to the rescue.
And sometimes, I’m somehow comforted to realize that there are people in this world who live the good life by making movies like this and piling up some coin doing it.
“Thrash” Director Tommy Wirkola is one such person. Wirkola is behind such Hollywood gems as “Spermageddon” and the somewhat better known “Violent Night,” starring David Harbour as Santa and John Leguizamo as Scrooge.
I don’t know anything about these movies other than the fact that, by some mystery solvable only by those with Hollywood insider knowledge, someone in Hollywood funds them.
When I say that Wirkola lives the good life, I mean it. In “Thrash,” he was able to create a movie that comes off as the ultimate fantasy for some of us poor souls who have been psychologically damaged enough by ten years of Trump to fantasize about a wild-eyed Trump supporter being eaten by sharks.
I doubt that’s how Executive Producer D. Scott Lumpkin pitched the movie to investors. But I also have no doubt director Wirkola was rubbing his hands in glee when he said to his film editor, “No, we keep the scene where the shark bites the MAGAt in the ass.”
The film is set in the fictional small coastal South Carolina town of Annieville, which is about to get violently submerged by climate change’s finest, a Category 5 hurricane.
One character, when asked the name of the hurricane, dismissively says, “Hurricane Henry.”
“What would you call it?” he’s asked.
“Ted Bundy.”
The movie is like that.
The plot revolves mostly around two sets of characters. One set is headed by a teenager, Dakota (Whitney Peak), who is trying to recover from the passing of her perfect mother. Her uncle, Dr. Dale Edwards (Djimon Hounsou), is a marine biologist who has assumed guardianship. He has left Dakota alone in the big house she’s inherited from her deceased parents so he can serve as the film’s resident expert on sharks, which we quickly learn are swarming the town after a storm surge.
Dakota is suffering from a psychotic episode of some sort, where she has become agoraphobic. As the hurricane approaches, she can’t leave the house because she’s too afraid to be exposed to the public.
Her uncle, Dr. Edwards, is one of the heroes of the movie. He hails from Mozambique, so we assume Dakota shares the same ancestral home, since it’s clear he’s her mom’s brother. This also acts as a film device to help illustrate the political divide that “Thrash” sharks use to decide what to eat.1
At this point, however, we still assume that everyone is fair game for Hurricane Ted Bundy and its hungry sharks. Little do we know that director Wirkola is forming two camps: Trumpsters and the resistance, and that nobody in the resistance can be killed. Yay us!
To make a long character story short, Dakota is not the kind of kid who is going to end up in juvie. So she’s the perfect sort to take the helm of Camp Dakota, which, of course, is part of the opposition, if not its very symbol.
So is another camp, which I’ll call “Camp Foster Kids.” This camp consists of three foster kids lorded over by their foster dad, a crazed Trump voter, a perfectly stereotypical South Carolina white dude named Bob Olson (Josh McConville).
We know he’s MAGA because he constantly speaks abusively to his foster kids, the camera likes to cut to the American flag in the front yard of his dilapidated home, and he displays willful ignorance with every sentence that spills out of his angry mouth. If AI created a MAGAt, it would be Bob Olson.
Camp Foster Kids’ oppressor is joined by his submissive wife, Helen (Amy Mathews). As the town becomes submerged by Hurricane Ted Bundy, its waters fill with hungry bull sharks lured to town by a cute movie device, a meat packing truck that splits in half as the driver attempts to flee the storm surge.
Apparently, the meat truck is filled with a blimp-sized water balloon full of blood, because when it splits open, all the surrounding water turns red, which acts as a PA system of sorts that announces to the local bull sharks that there is much fun to be had in Annieville. Chomp chomp.
Numerous people of unknown political persuasions are red-shirted2 during the initial bull shark meetup with Annieville’s townspeople, until, mostly, only our two camps are left surviving: Camp Dakota and Camp Foster Kids.
Camp Dakota is joined early in the movie by a pregnant woman, Lisa (Phoebe Dynevor), from New York. Lisa is stuck in town for some reason and is stalked by a helicopter mom who is always staring at her from a smartphone in Lisa’s car during an always-on video chat. Seriously, they could have just made a horror movie out of that.
Luckily, Lisa loses the video connection thanks to the storm. Less luckily, she subsequently gets trapped by a fallen tree inside her Mini Cooper (the Mini Cooper is our clue that she’s not a Trump supporter). After surviving a shark attack of sorts, Lisa is saved by Dakota, who miraculously overcomes her agoraphobia despite witnessing several red shirt incidents in the surging red waters of Annieville.
After the heroic rescue, they make their way to Dakota’s house, which is beginning to fill up with water. Lisa parks herself on top of a big wooden queen-size bed that, for some reason, seems to be in the living room of the house. Tempted as they are to movie-bicker, the pair quickly realizes they are in this together, and, besides, Lisa’s about to squirt out her new baby. Yikes!
Major spoiler alert: If you’ve ever wanted to see a woman give birth while swimming in shark infested waters, this is must-watch Netflix. It’s not the cinematic masterpiece “Sharknado” is, but it’s close enough.
Dakota pulls some curtains off the windows, climbs on top of the roof, and writes out the words, “HELP” with the cloth. In most movies, this kind of thing results in a later event tied to the original, but not in “Thrash.” All we get is a helicopter view (perhaps filmed by Lisa’s helicopter mom) showing the newly made DIY sign, and we never see it again.
Meanwhile, back in Camp Foster Kids, Foster Dad Bundy is treating his foster kids like he bought a hate manual authored by Stephen Miller, dropping more F bombs on them than your favorite angry Substack writers after a rough Trump news day.
Unlike your favorite Substack F bombers, though, he’s with the bad guys, and by this point of the flick, we’re already pretty convinced he’s going to meet a gnarly fate. Those of us who have been suffering MAGA foolishness for ten years are firing up a bucket of Orville Redenbacher’s, eager to witness his unpleasant demise. Hit pause, pop, return.
To be sure we understand the direction of the coming mayhem, director Wirkola cuts to a scene where Ma and Pa MAGA are hiding in the basement from Camp Foster Kids while discussing their new Treasury Department foster kid payout. Secrets are discussed.
“Uncle Sam,” says Foster Dad Bundy after his wife proudly displays the Treasury check to him, “he does pay out now and then.”
Mrs. Maga opens the refrigerator door, and the two commiserate over Uncle Sam’s largesse. But then Dee (Alyla Browne), one of the foster kids, descends the stairs (before it floods) into the forbidden basement to announce meekly, “We’re hungry.”
Foster Dad Bundy launches an expletive-filled tirade.
The young girl looks appalled, but not because of the Trumpified treatment. “You have steak?” she asks with wide eyes, observing Ma and Pa MAGA’s open refrigerator, which is filled to the brim with Treasury Department ribeyes.
Foster Dad Bundy launches an expletive-filled tirade.
The film next cuts to a scene where Foster Dad Bundy is seen sleeping on a chair whilst holding a can of beer.
Dee, or maybe one of the other foster kids, or maybe all three, I can’t remember, starts screaming that the storm looks really bad.
Foster Dad Bundy launches an expletive-filled tirade.
He then gets swept out of his chair across the room by a surge of water blasting through the living room window.
Foster Dad Bundy manages to collect himself, and then, for some reason (many unknown reasons in this film), he and his submissive wife decide to step outside and wade through shark-infested surge waters. If I remember correctly, they end up in the garage or something, where Mother Bundy gets eaten. Doesn’t really matter where, truth be told.
After Ma Maga is eaten, Foster Dad Bundy decides to try to escape in his Trumpy pickup, thus leaving the three foster kids to fend for themselves, but he gets bit in the ass by a shark as he’s climbing into the vehicle. The bite forces him to fall backwards into the water. I suppose it hurts, too, but it’s hard to tell because he’s always cussing.
The shark and Foster Dad Bundy perform a bloody water ballet as they twirl each other under the water until Foster Dad appears above the water’s surface, staring at half an arm. And I thought I was a terrible dance partner.
During the back and forth scenes between Camp Dakota and Camp Foster Kids, the film regularly cuts away to Dakota’s uncle, Dr. Edwards, who is studiously (remember, he’s a marine biologist, so he’s always studious) trying to figure out how to get to Annieville, which has been told by authorities to evacuate.
He knows Dakota is still there because she’s agorophobic (and also, because she told him on the phone).
At some point, I can’t remember quite when, one of the researchers Dr. Edwards pals around with notices something on some kind of marine machine with bleepy blips and stuff — you know, the kind of blippy machine you see in movies: “Hey, that’s the great white shark we tagged three years ago!” Bleep, bleep!
“We’ve got to get to Annieville!!!!” someone yells.
“But how? The roads are closed!”
“We’ll take a boat up I-17!!!!!”
It’s a hundred miles away in the middle of a Category 5 hurricane, but these are hardy folk.
Meanwhile, Camp Dakota faces a new crisis. Lisa informs poor agorophobic Dakota that her contractions suggest imminent birth. But, hey, kid, I need you to make sure. I’ll spread my legs, and you have a looksee!
Oh my God, the look on poor Dakota’s face. It looks like Trump himself is offering her a salted caramel he’s holding between two fingers. Alarmed, Dakota asks how she’s supposed to measure the cervix. Her head darts around looking for a measuring tape.
“Just eyeball it!” says a panicked Lisa. You could cut the tension in the air with a shark’s tooth.
Reluctantly, Dakota peers in: “OH MY GOD I CAN SEE THE HEAD!”
Dakota is cured of agoraphobia immediately upon staring at Lisa’s cervix, and declares that she’s going to venture outside and find that boat they saw earlier (long story that involves red shirt mayhem).
My assumption while watching this scene is that she’s going to get on that boat and head to Myrtle Beach, as far away from Lisa as possible, but nope, she braves the hurricane and sharks and heads back to the house.
But not before the house falls on top of Lisa’s head as she is giving birth on the bed she’s claimed.
Dakota rows toward her new New York friend, who emerges from the wreckage holding a baby. (You may remember that I mentioned a scene where she gives birth whilst swimming amongst sharks).
It’s a beautiful, sweet moment that makes even me, who would almost rather live in Trump’s world another 20 years than even contemplate giving birth, long for the bonds of motherhood.
Mixed in with all this are scenes from Camp Foster Kids, who triumph over evil in ways only a foster kid could, by kicking Foster Dad Bundy in the head as he… Okay, I guess I need to backtrack a bit.
So, the foster kids are buoyed (see what I did there?) by the knowledge that Foster Dad Bundy is dead, so they start sort of singing, “Fuck him, fuck him” when deciding they need to go to the forbidden basement to gather meat.
But then, in Terminator fashion, Foster Dad Bundy ruins the buzz by popping out of the water and dropping F bombs.
So Dee kicks him in the head, he falls back into the waters of the flooded living room, and he is finally, praise the Lord, eaten by sharks. Victory for the resistance!
One of the kids swims into the basement, evading one shark, then another, and returns with the meat and some dynamite. We know that it’s dynamite because the sticks of dynamite look precisely like the kind Wile E. Coyote uses.
They toss the meat into the water, then, as the dumb bull sharks coalesce around the meat, the kids throw the dynamite into the water and blow all the sharks to pieces. I am uncertain how they light the dynamite, but I’m not certain it matters. I may have also missed that part. I was stuffing my face full of popcorn.
Camp Foster Kids wins! If it’s me, I am sticking around to collect shark steaks, but no, not these kids. They pile into Foster Dad Bundy’s truck. One of them, I think the youngest, asks, “Where are we gonna go?”
Another says something like, “Somewhere safe.”
Another says, for realz, “Florida!”
Whew. Those crazy kids.
Anyway, back to Camp Dakota.
Lisa, holding her baby, is in mortal danger from a big school of sharks. So she does what any tough New York City gal does, and declares to her new baby, “Mommy’s gonna fight some fucking sharks.”
I think I might have blacked out at this point (and I don’t even drink!), because the next thing I remember is a great white shark jumping out of the water and snatching a bull shark that’s about to eat mom and baby. In the old days, before AI, we’d look at the scene of the great white shark gracefully leaping through the air like Flipper the dolphin and think, “That’s some fine shark training right there,” or, if we’re a little smarter, “Cool CGI.”
Dakota’s uncle finishes off the sharks by dropping some kind of electrical device in the water. Threat eliminated.
Not one warrior from the resistance was killed!
I actually kind of loved that I knew early into the movie that nobody from our side would die in the mayhem. For that reason, I must award this movie five stars.
Notes
And I can’t sell more than 600 copies of my novels. Sigh. What a world.
Neither Trump nor MAGA is ever mentioned in the movie. They didn’t need to be.
Thanks for reading!
Footnotes
It’s fair to criticize this description as a form of racial profiling (POC=libs), but it’s so obvious in the film that I don’t know what else I can say.
The term “red-shirted” is a term derived from the original “Star Trek” TV series. It refers to characters, not central to the show, that we know are going to be killed during an upcoming scene because they wear red Federation uniforms.