Among the chum-bucket full of shark movies to come out of Australia in recent years, “Dangerous Animals” is one of the juiciest pieces of meat. Writer Nick Lepard, in his first major credit, and director Sean Byrne, in his first effort since 2015’s “The Devil’s Candy,” wisely achieve horror from a land-based human angle and then integrate shark-based fear.
The film gets quick chemistry out of two hotties: Hassie Harrison, as loner tourist Zephyr, and Josh Heuston, as local good guy Moses. The characterization is a notch deeper than the lazier approach of creating a generic Girlfriend and Boyfriend.
In the showcase role of Tucker, a shark-tour captain who is quickly revealed to be a twisted f***, is Jai Courtney. Cinema had been trying to make Jai Courtney happen for years, and now after everyone has stopped paying attention, he happens into this role of a villain you’ll love to hate.
“Dangerous Animals” (2025)
Director: Sean Byrne
Writer: Nick Lepard
Stars: Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston
Lepard inches the picture toward step-too-far torture porn but stops short of nightmare visions. It’s like “Shark Night,” only the humor is replaced with tension, achieved by messed-up scenarios, a couple of earned jump scares and a heroine we root for.
Shot off the Australia coast, “Animals” gives us some daytime vacay glitz then lights up the nighttime waters with the spotlight from Tucker’s boat. It’s not lavish but doesn’t look cheap either. The film has a hilarious number of production companies behind it, and probably most of the money was spent on solid actors. Another good one is Ella Newton’s Heather, who might not have the Zephyr-level drive to survive.
Who’s really the animal?
“Animals” adheres to the “Jaws” adage of not showing the sharks too much. But instead of slow-burn suspense, the money-saving “down time” is filled with cat-and-mouse (or fisherman-and-marlin?) tension as two human “sharks” (or shahhhks) engage in a battle of wits. The shark shots pass muster but they are not the reason to see this film.
“Animals” doesn’t quite reach unexplored shark-movie depths. Tucker speaks of the food chain and how sharks are misunderstood, but it’s like if a terrorist publishes a manifesto; right or wrong, it doesn’t seem quite right to read it.
There’s also a little something about the danger of being a loner in a world where connections are becoming harder to form. “Animals” does a good job of establishing that this killer could plausibly get away with his scheme … for a while.
We effectively feel like Zephyr is isolated in a madman’s clutches yet it’s conceivable she could survive. Maybe a tad beyond conceivable. A couple decades ago, a plot like this would’ve been drenched in fatalism; today, we need some hope, and Byrne is happy to play crowd-pleaser.
“Dangerous Animals” is a notch below that top tier of shark horror in most categories, but for what it’s worth, it has one of the most easy-to-like couples in this subgenre. It follows “Heart Eyes” as a 2025 movie that smoothly integrates horror with romance; feel-good fantasies about the power human connection in the face of depravity that weirdly borders on shrug-worthy in a post-Eli Roth era. If a third rom-horror comes along, we can call it a trend.