This is a big week for genre mash-ups on streaming. Thrash combines a disaster story and shark movie as the survivors of Category 5 hurricane must avoid killer fish stalking the streets of their flooded town. The horror thriller swims onto Netflix. Seven screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker and first-time director Gavin Polone blend serial killer thriller tropes and a slasher film’s ornate on-screen kills in the throwback film Psycho Killer, which carves a bloody path onto VOD.
Frankenstein’s monster and his newly created companion go on the run in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, which drives onto VOD. If you’re looking for a very different sort of monster, rent The Yeti, where an ancient beast stalks a rescue party in Alaska.
Here’s a rundown of the most notable new releases on streaming and VOD, including the biggest, best, and most popular new movies you can watch at home right now.
New on Netflix
Thrash
- Genre: Survival thriller
- Run time: 1h 26m
- Director: Tommy Wirkola
- Cast: Phoebe Dynevor, Whitney Peak, Djimon Hounsou
A slightly more grounded spin on Sharknado, Thrash follows a marine researcher (Djimon Hounsou) trying to help the residents of a coastal town after a Category 5 hurricane leads to bloodthirsty sharks swimming through their streets. The trapped survivors, including a very pregnant woman (Phoebe Dynevor), have to escape the rising waters.
From our review:
Thrash is most successful when it goes for straightforward thrills, as in a scene where the kids must figure out how to distract some sharks, swim into their flooded basement, retrieve some crucial gear, and make it back up to their almost-submerged kitchen-counter perch before the creatures come after them. The movie also deserves some exploitation credit for actually having a woman give birth in shark-infested floodwaters, reaching levels of child-endangerment shamelessness rarely seen in mainstream movies.
New on Apple TV
Outcome
- Genre: Black comedy
- Run time: 1h 24m
- Director: Jonah Hill
- Cast: Keanu Reeves, Jonah Hill, Matt Bomer
Hollywood star Reef Hawk (Keanu Reeves) is trying to redeem his image after taking five years off acting to deal with a heroin addiction. But when crisis lawyer Ira Slitz (Jonah Hill) informs Reef that a blackmailer is threatening to release a video that could further hurt his reputation, the actor goes on an apology tour to try to find the culprit.
New on Hulu
Sirât
- Genre: Thriller
- Run time: 1h 54m
- Director: Óliver Laxe
- Cast: Sergi López, Bruno Núñez Arjona, Richard Bellamy
The Academy Award-nominated film follows Luis (Sergi López) as he searches for his daughter, who went missing months ago while attending a rave. Luis and his son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) hope to find answers by following a group of partiers deep into the Moroccan desert, not realizing how dangerous the journey is.
New to rent
The Bride!
- Genre: Gothic romance
- Run time: 2h 6m
- Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
- Cast: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard
Possessed by the spirit of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley and killed by Chicago gangsters, Ida (Jessie Buckley) is reanimated as a companion for Frankenstein’s monster Frank (Christian Bale). When Ida quickly gets in trouble partying, she and Frank go on the run and cause mayhem across the country.
From our review:
This movie is its own kind of Frankenstein’s monster, stitched together from a thousand different parts and lurching into disturbing life. The Bride! seems like it was meant to be discussed, analyzed, and unpacked at length, with different fans seizing on different elements as the key to the whole shambling creature. But like so many of the Frankensteinian creatures that preceded it onto the screen, it’s a bit of an unwieldy monster.
Psycho Killer
- Genre: Horror thriller
- Run time: 1h 31m
- Director: Gavin Polone
- Cast: Georgina Campbell, James Preston Rogers, Malcolm McDowell
After her husband is murdered by a serial killer, Highway Patrol officer Jane Archer (Georgina Campbell) goes well outside her jurisdiction to try to bring the Satanic Slasher (James Preston Rogers) to justice. Jane goes on a cross-country journey pursuing the Slasher as he continues his killing spree.
From our review:
Psycho Killer is indeed about a character from a serial killer/cop movie chasing a character from a slasher movie. That genre-bending worked wonders for Oz Perkins’ Longlegs, which also steered a ’90s serial killer story toward something eerier and more uncanny. But as Jane tails the Satanic Slasher on a cross-country journey and the two storylines converge, they grow increasingly incompatible.
The Yeti
- Genre: Horror
- Run time: 1h 31m
- Directors: Gene Gallerano and William Pisciotta
- Cast: Brittany Allen, Eric Nelsen, Jim Cummings
When an oil tycoon goes missing in Alaska, his son organizes a rescue party to look for him. But along with grappling with the harsh elements, they discover an ancient horror dwelling in the remote wilderness that is enraged that they are invading its territory. The pulpy, blood-soaked film uses practical effects to evoke classic monster movies.
