Part double disaster film, part shark-attack flick, Thrash is a low-stakes thriller whose absurdities prove to be mildly entertaining, but do not a good film make. Perhaps a commendable (or not) thing about Thrash is that it doesn’t aspire to be one, content to keep its place among the category of low-brow films that are mostly made to fit into algorithmic programming strategy. There is no promise of high art here, but there is also no pretence.

Fifty years since the iconic Jaws became a part of cinema history, it has been clear that shark films will continue to be milked as a guilty pleasure watch. That most of them have hardly attained the level of the 1975 film (not even close!) is befittingly summed up by the term ‘sharksploitation’, used to describe a genre that is mostly churned out for popcorn thrills and chills.

Thrash, streaming on Netflix, goes a step further. It adds a natural disaster — a Category 5 hurricane — to the mix, taking place in small-town Annieville, that is bracing itself for the impending superstorm. The wiser townspeople have fled, save some, of course. These include Dakota (Whitney Peak), frozen with agoraphobia following the recent death of her mother, whose plan is to sit the storm out indoors as her marine biologist uncle Dale (Djimon Hounsou) tracks a great white shark he and his team have tagged. Pregnant Lisa (Phoebe Dynevor) decides to drive out of town, but is caught in the storm, crashes her car and is trapped inside. Orphans Dee (Alyla Browne), Ron (Stacy Clausen) and Will (Dante Ubaldi) are forced to shelter with their irresponsible foster parents.

The hurricane destroys the seawall, and the town is flooded. Add to that, a tanker truck carrying offal and animal blood bursts open, luring bull sharks who start prowling the flooded streets of the town. The great white shark is also around. We all know how it goes from here.

Thrash packs in almost all the ingredients needed for this genre, but lacks the toothy bite that should have made this an entertainer. It does deliver some pulpy thrills, especially in terms of blood and gore. But its refusal to swim beyond familiar themes and predictable twists makes it sink faster than it should have.

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