Dangerous Animals

Sharks and serial killers are two of the most enduringly popular themes in horror cinema, so it’s quite remarkable that – despite a few half-hearted attempts – nobody has really brought them together before. Dangerous Animals does so with gusto. It’s the energy and confidence in Nick Lepard’s script that enables it to get away with this. There was never going to be a way to do it that made logical sense, but as long as it makes sense to the serial killer character, and as long as the actor playing him can believe in it, the other elements fall into place.

They are very much in place in a film that sticks closely to formula, but it’s well played. Director Sean Byrne made a splash back in 2009 with his feature début, The Loved Ones, and brings a real sense of style to what could easily have been delivered as an off-the-shelf blockbuster. Jai Courtney makes a fantastic bad guy, full of swagger and verve. There’s a wonderful sequence about half way through when for no particular reason, he dances around in his dressing gown and underwear, beer in hand, to Stevie Wright’s Evie (Let Your Hair Hang Down). The absolute confidence he brings to this makes it a rich character moment. One might argue that, between this and the character’s targeting of tourists and use of quiz questions, he owes a fair bit to John Jarrett’s Ivan Milat-inspired monster in the Wolf Creek films, but there’s something here that’s distinctive and personal and altogether too much fun.

Up against him in the film’s main narrative, Southbound alumna Hassie Harrison reveals a similar force of personality. The two of them could bite chunks out of the scenery as easily as any of the sharks, and yet, in balance, they work. Harrison’s Zephyr (she’s from the US so no-one asks about the name) is a drifter with a background in juvenile detention; five and a half feet of muscle and bruise with hungry eyes and a mop of golden hair. She’s looking for a good wave, but finds a pretty young man to ride along the way (Josh Heuston’s Moses). Fortunately for her, if not necessarily for him, he can’t let it go – but she’s pretty good at surviving on her own, even in extremis.

With a charming supportive turn from Ella Newton as reluctant adventure tourist Heather, who has a bit of that Sandra Bullock in The Vanishing-style memorability, Byrne has everything he needs for a thriller that’s centred on characters as much as action or teeth. He invests in the details: the killer singing his favourite TV theme tune to himself whilst he works, the name scratched onto a wall, little dog Marlowe who repeatedly barks out warnings only to be ignored. We see makos, bull sharks and more, and get a little smattering of shark facts thrown in. Then there’s what is withheld. We get only a fragment of the killer’s origin story or motive; we’re left to infer the rest. A dramatic scar still seems to be consuming him. Zephyr is similarly swathed in mystery, for all the rawness of a scene in which she reveals her animality by making an old adage her own.

A stonking set of songs adds to the atmosphere and suits the characters down to the ground. Byrne doesn’t try to pin the film to any particular era, giving it a sense of timelessness that complements their rootless nature. Phone culture is very much present, but the killer records his escapades on VHS, where all exploitation classics truly belong. The sharks themselves are rather less present, circling on the margins – in that, this film gets closer to the ur-shark film, Jaws, than most, though it’s notably less inclined to flimsy homage. A similar approach is taken with the gore. We don’t see all that much directly. It’s more effective because of the role played by the imagination.

Dangerous Animals is quite a beast, and yet it’s anything but impulsive. Everything about it is carefully crafted, as if Byrne were amused by by the parallels between his own particularity and that of his villain. Sly humour helps him manage tone and pacing. The all too real horrors of lives like Zephyr’s help to keep it sharp. Most importantly, Byrne knows what his audience is looking for, and that’s why, even though its structures are familiar, the film will show you a good time.

Reviewed on: 05 Jun 2025