When Steven Spielberg’s Jaws came out over 50 years ago, it set a new standard for “When Animals Attack” movies, winning audiences over with its terrifying set pieces and memorable characters. In the decades since Jaws helped revolutionize the film industry, there have been a plethora of other shark movies released. While Jaws still stands alone as an all-time great, many of its followers have been successful in their own right, taking different approaches to leave an impression on audiences. There’s a new shark movie that’s currently streaming on Netflix, and it’s officially a mega hit for the platform.

For the week of April 6th-12th, Thrash was the No. 1 movie on Netflix globally. During that time, it accumulated 37.7 million views and was watched for a total of 54 million hours. It was far and away the top film on the streamer; the second-place title, The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson, netted 7.3 million views and 11.9 million hours watched. This was the first week Thrash placed in Netflix’s top 10.

Why Thrash Is a Massive Hit for Netflix


Excitement for Thrash has been building over the past month; in March, Netflix unveiled the first look at the thriller, highlighting what made it distinct from other B-movies like the cult favorite Sharknado series. It stood out from the crowd by taking a (slightly) more serious and grounded approach, setting the story in the midst of a devastating Category 5 hurricane. As the inhabitants of the town deal with the flooding, they also have to contend with a hungry shark who’s out for prey. The Thrash trailer teased a number of gruesome deaths — the kinds that fans of creature features love to see. It was a sign that the film wasn’t going to shy away from the gore, fully embracing its R rating.

Unlike Jaws (or even the underrated Blake Lively thriller The Shallows), Thrash is not exactly a critical darling. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is only 43% (from 53 reviews), and the audience rating is even lower at 24%. With that kind of reception, it likely won’t end up on lists of the best creature features moving forward. Still, there’s enough there for B-movie fans to latch onto. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the table from a narrative perspective, but the general consensus is that it’s a mostly solid thriller that knows what it is. Plus, with a run time at just 84 minutes, Thrash doesn’t overstay its welcome, making it perfect for Netflix users who are looking for some absurd genre thrills one night.

Courtesy of Netflix/The Asylum

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Making Thrash‘s viewership numbers all the more impressive is the fact that it only premiered on Netflix on April 10th, meaning it racked up all those millions of views in just a few days. That illustrates that even with the mixed word of mouth, viewers have been looking forward to Thrash and made a point to cue it up as soon as possible. The film’s success on Netflix marks the end of what had been a long and winding journey to the screen. Thrash was originally going to be released theatrically by Sony before it became a Netflix film. For everyone involved with the film, it has to be nice to see it connect with audiences on a global scale in this way.

While Thrash was made in the hopes that it would play on the big screen, it’s probably for the best that it eventually found a home on streaming. Sony envisioned the film as a summer release, at one point scheduling it to debut over Independence Day weekend. Had it stuck to that plan, there’s a chance Thrash would have underwhelmed in theaters, being overshadowed by all of the big releases on deck this July. Considering how the reviews turned out, casual moviegoers may not have been willing to make the trek to the theater to see it, but it’s a lot easier to convince them to push play at home. Now, perhaps Thrash could be the start of a new B-movie franchise for Netflix.