Dangerous Animals, 2025.
Directed by Sean Byrne,
Starring Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston, Ella Newton, Liam Greinke, Jon Quested, Giorgia Stawaruk, and Rob Carlton.
SYNOPSIS:
When Zephyr, a savvy and free-spirited surfer, is abducted by a shark-obsessed serial killer and held captive on his boat, she must figure out how to escape before he carries out a ritualistic feeding to the sharks below.
While it’s not an earth-shattering idea to make a film involving sharks (or any bloodthirsty creature) where the real threat is a human being, director Sean Byrne has brought to Dangerous Animals aesthetically pleasing craftsmanship and subversive elements to otherwise familiar material.
Alongside screenwriter Nick Lepard, this film is having an unhinged blast with its psychotic serial killer thriller setup of an Australian misogynistic sociopath shark-diving tour guide (a wild and twisted Jai Courtney, doing everything from singing and dancing to waxing philosophical about the food chain in between his violent rage) who lures couples or groups onto his boat before killing the unsuspecting men, subsequently tormenting the women by lowering them into the ocean feeding them to the sharks. The sick lunatic also records these deaths on VHS tapes for his disturbing pleasure.
It’s a hell of a role that allows Jai Courtney to stand out flexing a bonkers side, which is refreshing since much of his previous work has often been dry, stiff, and unmemorable. He has also shed his action persona, here not too far off from resembling an Aussie Seth Rogen with disheveled facial features. His filmography is rough, so it’s a backhanded compliment, but this is arguably the most interesting, compulsively watchable, and charismatic Jai Courtney has ever been, so here’s hoping this is also a start of shying away from playing relatively generic action heroes, whether they be within popular IPs or original.
The other surprise is how sympathetic and well-characterized his victims are, adding another layer of involvement to the cyclical game of near escapes and recaptures. Admittedly, Dangerous Animals starts to overstay its welcome in its third act. There is a much tighter 75-minute movie here, but it’s also forgivable some of this is drawn out since the associated chases, surprises, kills, detours, and battles between prey and predator are staged with dynamism and intensity (courtesy of cinematographer Shelley Farthing-Dawe, skilled at lulling viewers into a false sense of security and cleanly shooting the chaos on land and ocean), alongside a captivating sense that the majority of these characters’ lives are not safe by virtue of coming across as significant characters with effort put into their backstories.
At the center of this torture is free-spirited, van-living tourist Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), with Dangerous Animals taking just the right amount of time to establish who she is and a brief one-night stand with local fellow surfer Moses (Josh Heuston) with meaning. However, Zephyr is someone who would rather run away and keep traveling before getting too close to someone. She has personal baggage and insists that there is nothing or no one for her on land, hence her need to surf.
Poor luck means she encounters the aforementioned serial killer, putting her to sleep and kidnapping her, bringing her aboard the boat and handcuffing her to a bed alongside the other captives (including a terrified woman played by Ella Newton). Meanwhile, Moses, having accepted he has been ghosted, also doesn’t believe that Zephyr would abandon her van after noticing it has been towed.
Having grown up rebelliously and in foster homes, Zephyr is a fighter who isn’t going to be pushed around by this nutjob. She’s resourceful with determination; even when it’s made clear that no one is around to hear her screams and save the day, she still does so anyway, unwilling to give up, but also as an act of resilience. Zephyr is also no horror 101 dummy when it comes to proactively surviving against psychopaths or sharks, put through a gauntlet of parallel scenarios that, again, would have come across as tiresome if not for the riveting filmmaking and livewire performances.
Perhaps unsurprisingly and clichéd, the “dangerous animal” the title refers to is up for debate. At times, the film goes a bit too far with this, as characters spell it out for anyone who might not be keeping up. The romantic angle between Zephyr and Moses, while mostly successful, also occasionally elicits eye rolls, most notably when the latter attempts to discuss love and relationships at a ridiculously inappropriate moment.
Then again, as Jai Courtney’s morally righteous serial killer puts it, he’s always been more of a horror fan than a romantic, which fits since Sean Byrne excels in that area over the other. Still, there are real characters in Dangerous Animals, which makes this deranged watch all the more juicy. Come for Jai Courtney’s insanity, stay for Hassie Harrison’s tenacious and fierce newcomer turn.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
