The new shark-disaster film Thrash drops a category 5 hurricane named Henry on the fictional coastal town of Annieville, South Carolina, flooding the streets and letting bull sharks loose among trapped residents — including a pregnant woman and a trio of foster siblings. Phoebe Dynevor, known to Bridgerton fans, leads the cast. But if the Carolina beach town looks slightly off, that's because the whole thing was shot in and around Melbourne, Australia.
The real Annieville does exist, sort of: it's a tiny rural spot in Georgetown County, South Carolina, north of Georgetown and close to Pawleys Island and Litchfield Beach. The movie version, however, is a mash-up of Victorian locations.
The most recognisable is the McKay's Meats building — actually the John Darling and Son Flour Mill in Albion, a red-brick complex with towering silos that opened in 1922 and milled flour until the 1990s. When Dynevor's character Lisa drives across town, the streets belong to Williamstown, a seaside suburb about 7 miles southwest of Melbourne in Hobsons Bay. Nelson Place, the suburb's historic main strip, doubles as Annieville in the tense pre-landfall scenes. Williamstown has come a long way from its scruffy industrial-port days and now leans into its preserved heritage buildings, which is presumably why it photographs so well as an American small town.
For the harbour scenes featuring Dale's ocean research vessel, production headed to Mornington Pier on the Mornington Peninsula, roughly an hour's drive southeast of Melbourne. It's been a working fishing spot since around 1850 and was rebuilt after a bad storm in 2017.
The big set pieces — the flooded streets, the equestrian statue, Raffaella's Pizza and Pasta — were built at Docklands Studios in Melbourne's redeveloped Docklands precinct. Opened in 2004, it's Victoria's top film and TV facility, with six sound stages. The key to Thrash is Stage 6: a dedicated water stage with a 900,000-litre tank, 4.5 metres deep, which is exactly the kind of infrastructure that draws underwater blockbusters to the city.
For travellers, this is a handy map of Melbourne's more interesting corners. Williamstown makes an easy half-day trip by train or ferry from the CBD, with waterfront pubs and heritage walks. The Mornington Peninsula combines the pier with hot springs, wineries and beach towns, so it works as an overnight add-on. And while Albion's silos are an industrial curiosity rather than an attraction, they're a short hop from central Melbourne. None of these places involve sharks, which is a bonus.
