Ever since Jaws invented the summer blockbuster back in 1975, sharks have become synonymous with a damn good time at the movies. Given that most human beings (normal ones, at least) have an evolutionarily in-built fear of sharks, even ‘bad’ shark movies come with an inherent advantage that makes it easier to overlook their faults in favor of the simple joy that comes from watching people get torn to pieces by giant toothy monsters.
Luckily, Dangerous Animals doesn’t need to rely on any tongue-in-cheek schlock to make it an absolute blast. The third feature from The Loved Ones and The Devil’s Candy’s Sean Byrne, Dangerous Animals is a lean, mean survival saga with a hell of a lot of bite, one that pulls proudly from pools of both B-movie horror and serial killer thriller inspirations to craft a future midnight movie hit that (hopefully) will also make a splash at the summer box office. And no, I'm not done with the shark puns just yet. Sorry.
Dangerous Animals centers on American transplant and lovable loner Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), who has made her way to the sun-kissed shores of Australia’s Gold Coast to shed the weight of her troubled past and hang ten on some of the country’s best and biggest waves. However, Zephyr’s Neptunian odyssey of self-liberation, as well as her fledgling love affair with doe-eyed realtor Moses (Josh Heuston), is cut short when she’s abducted by cage-diver-cum-serial killer Captain Tucker (a deliciously sadistic Jai Courtney), whose hulking frame and unfettered antipodean charm place him immediately in the canon of iconic Aussie horror villains alongside Wolf Creek’s Mick Taylor and The Babadook’s titular trauma spirit.
Perhaps a reflection of the natural world having taken enough of our shit, Dangerous Animals joins the recent animal attack movie renaissance alongside films like Alexandre Aja's Crawl, Sébastien Vaniček’s Infested, and Renny Harlin’s upcoming Deep Water and Black Tides. Animal lovers who come with concerns about this particular subgenre need not fear though, because as you’ve probably already guessed from Dangerous Animals’ sharks-and-serial-killer logline, there’s a clear villain in this movie – and it ain't the one with 300 razor-sharp teeth. Byrne is clearly conscious of unfairly demonizing the creatures who are just trying to survive in their own habitat, one that is brought to life with stunning ocean photography from cinematographer Shelley Farthing-Dawe to craft a setting that's as beautiful as it is scary. The claustrophobia of Zephyr’s below-deck prison contrasts with the daunting, endless majesty of the surrounding ocean to create a very visceral sense of fear, further compounded by the lashings of violence which never stray too far beyond the bounds of realism. There’s a weight to Dangerous Animal’s gory moments, which are used sparingly to great effect, that makes Zephyr’s situation feel all the more authentic, and therefore terrifying.
While all of the central cast do a great job making their characters feel lived-in (Rob Carlton’s turn as leathery local Dave is a particular highlight) it’s unsurprisingly Courtney’s Tucker who steals the show, always feeling just one lurch of the waves away from snapping. When he does lose it completely, his pupils blown like the lifeless black eyes of a Great White, it’s a sight to behold, careening through his spiralling madness to light up a number of unforgettable set pieces, including a dance scene that perfectly toes the line between animalistically sexy and downright sinister. Kudos to Harrison for holding her own against this beast of a performance, which could easily have left a lesser performer floundering in its wake.
Refreshingly, Dangerous Animals doesn’t spend a huge amount of time pathologizing Tucker aside from a few examples of visual storytelling and lines that hint towards the reason for his descent into brutality. However, it’s adjacent to this that the mostly watertight script (from Nick Lepard, next seen on Osgood Perkins’ mysterious Keeper) has a tendency to drift into cliche, especially when fleshing out the gooey romance between Zephyr and Moses, or when it comes to bashing us over the head with the reminder that Zephyr and Tucker are, in their own unique ways, personified representations of the sharks they both fear and admire. There are more than a couple of eyeroll-inducing soundbites ruminating on the nature of humanity, as if Dangerous Animals doesn’t have faith in viewers to understand this particular analogy from the title alone (although to be fair, given the state of media literacy out there these days, that’s probably a fair assumption.)
But these gripes are few and far between – when all is said and done, Dangerous Animals is one of the year's best and well-crafted horror movies, and will without a doubt go down as one of the best shark attack pics in a genre that's heavily saturated. And with his first feature in a decade, Byrne firmly establishes himself as a quality-over-quantity filmmaker whose output is worth the wait for – hopefully it won’t be another eight years until he dips his toes back into genre waters.
Dangerous Animals hits theaters on June 6 via IFC Films and Shudder
