Abhiroop Das
Written and directed by Tommy Wirkola, Netflix’s ‘Thrash‘ turns the sunny, inviting town of Annieville into something of a hellscape as a storm rages in and destroys everything in sight. Though the town’s residents try to make an early exit following a hurricane announcement, nothing quite prepares them for what comes along with the cyclone. As floodwater gushes in, so does a gigantic shiver of bull sharks, who interpret the space as the perfect hunting ground. A pregnant woman named Lisa, an agoraphobic teen named Dakota, and three orphaned siblings are amongst many who are taken by shock and locked in one place. As the sharks begin their rampage, however, it becomes clear to the characters that the only way out is by fighting. Throughout this disaster movie, we see the entirety of Annieville erode in real time, conveying just how unstoppable the forces of nature can be.
Annieville is the Invented Setting of Thrash That Goes Underwater
Annieville is a fictional town that forms the main setting of ‘Thrash’, both as a hurricane landfall site and as a hunting ground for sharks. Described as a small, industry-based town located at the edge of South Carolina, the location fits into the movie perfectly from a geographical standpoint, as the state’s coastal hotspots are known to be at high risk of tropical weather hazards. The FEMA National Risk Index rates almost a third of South Carolina’s 46 counties as extremely high-risk regions when it comes to hurricanes and floods, and a quick glance through the state’s list of catastrophes shows exactly why that’s the case.
When conceptualizing Annieville, the creators of the film consulted Joe Merchant, who is a National Weather Service meteorologist. Their idea was to create a town supported by levees, while also constituting a number of estuaries and a coastline as a landfall site. While The Palmetto State is indeed a good fit for such an invention, no one town in particular appears to have been a source of inspiration. To complete Annieville, the creators also turned it into a meat-industry hub, which in turn explains why sharks are drawn there in the first place.
Though there is no official confirmation of any location in the state being referenced for the making of Annieville, there is a chance that Wirkola and his team researched the real-life hurricanes that have hit South Carolina over the years. Among these, the largest to date is Hurricane Hugo, which was classified as a Category 4 cyclone when it made landfall between September 21 and 22, 1989. It primarily hit Charleston County, with the island town of Sullivan’s Island and the fishing town of McClellanville being among the most affected. The latter location even reported storm surges reaching 20.2 feet or 6.2 meters in height, which only accelerated the damage to life and property. Charleston, as well as its neighboring counties like Georgetown, are known for their fishing economy, which makes it possible that the movie drew in some references for its fictional city.
An Ingenious Set Design Turned Annieville Into a Reality
While Annieville appears extremely realistic on screen, in reality, the bulk of the town was designed as a series of interlocking sets, which speaks to the creativity of the artists involved. The crew took over Dockland Studios in Melbourne, Australia, and turned its sound stages and even its parking lot into intricate sets. While the movie involves some stellar VFX work, a lot of the flooding scenes are also constructed using practical effects. Production designer David Ingram told Tudum that the set buildings were designed in layers, and, over time, each layer was removed from the bottom up to create an illusion of rising water levels. The team also filmed on-site in and around Melbourne to complement these scenes, effectively capturing the vibe of the fictional Annieville along the way.
Annieville’s production design is also based on the team’s deep research into how floods affect urban infrastructure. To get the finer details right, the creators consulted Chris Gloninger, a climate scientist, who explained to Tudum that “A lot of our infrastructure is built with the idea that the climate is static.” Keeping in mind how real-life coastal cities may be lacking an updated infrastructure for tropical weather conditions, the crew likely designed Annieville to have an aged aesthetic, which is reflected in how organically the sets respond to flood and storm simulations on screen.
Read More: Where Was Netflix’s Thrash Filmed?
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