Dangerous Animals Review: An Unhinged Jai Courtney Leads Sean Byrne’s Fairly Ambitious Mix of Shark Movie and Serial Killer Thriller
Playing an unhinged role is what Jai Courtney does best, which can be seen in his two Suicide Squad movies and now, Dangerous Animals. The movie gets off to a macabre start during its pre-credits opening stretch: Two tourists — one’s a Canadian named Greg (Liam Grienke) and the other’s a British, Heather (Ella Newton) — arrive at Tucker’s Experience, which specialises in a shark cage diving adventure. The namesake boat captain (Jai Courtney) knows well how to comfort his nervous tourists by having them sing along to the popular children’s song “Baby Shark” before entering the shark cage.
At the beginning, everything is fine, but not for long. Let’s just say it ends with some stabbing, lots of blood and a scream. It turns out that sharks aren’t the only dangerous animals after all. So, the sharks in this movie aren’t the main antagonists, but turn out to be Tucker himself. Not a spoiler here that he’s a psycho killer.
The movie soon introduces Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), a free-spirited young American, who reluctantly helps a guy (Josh Heuston’s Moses) jump-start his car. A meet-cute moment ensues, and they end up sleeping together. Sensing there’s a connection going on, Moses figures he has a chance with her, only to find out that Zephyr’s already gone after he wakes up the next morning. Apparently, Zephyr is out for surfing, and the next thing we know, it is the beginning of her longest nightmare. The rest of the movie is pretty much confined to in and out of Tucker’s boat, where Zephyr is held captive and handcuffed to a bed down below.
Returning to the director’s chair for the first time in a decade since The Devil’s Candy, Sean Byrne doesn’t shy away from the matter-of-fact brutality and violence. He brings out the best in Courtney, easily his best performance to date — a scary killer who kidnaps unsuspecting tourists like Zephyr before hoisting them on a winch like bait and lowering the victims down into the water filled with hungry sharks.
Courtney’s Tucker isn’t just obsessed with witnessing his victims getting mauled by the sharks, but also filming them with a VHS camera. He even collects the locks of his victims’ hair. He’s a sadistic and remorseless maniac through and through, and Courtney has a field day embracing his serial killer role wholeheartedly.
The main victim, Zephyr, played by the feisty Hassie Harrison, is no pushover, and she’s far from your average damsel-in-distress. She’s equally tough and resourceful, and at one point, even willing to do something unthinkable in the name of survival. Dangerous Animals benefits from Byrne’s muscular, no-holds-barred direction, even though the pace tends to be erratic for a supposedly lean horror-thriller clocking in at less than 100 minutes long.
With the movie predominantly taking place in the confines of Tucker’s boat, there is only so much one can do to keep the momentum consistent. This is especially true with Byrne for not delving deep into the psychological aspect in the battle of wits between Tucker and Zephyr. Sure, Zephyr does attempt to outsmart him on numerous occasions, but the rinse-and-repeat storytelling of her trying to escape gradually wears out its welcome.
The only things that keep me from losing interest are Courtney and Harrison’s above-average performances and Byrne’s genre know-how in a grisly Ozploitation-style horror, despite the latter barely scratching beyond its surface. Then comes the third act, which is strangely underwhelming for such a movie that I feel Byrne can do better than what I get here, especially after he shows some promise in the earlier part of the movie. Dangerous Animals isn’t a great genre flick that subverts the usual shark movie with the inclusion of a serial killer, as I thought it would be. It does have a few potential and more of a decent entry, largely saved by Courtney and Harrison’s acting.
