Sharks and serial killers are two potent forces of fear that rarely, if ever, have collided on screen. In an especially stacked summer movie season, Dangerous Animals (2025) presents that enticing mix of horror as a fresh alternative to the massive blockbusters dominating the multiplexes. Directed skillfully by Sean Byrne (The Devil’s Candy, The Loved Ones) and featuring an off-the-rails, villainous performance from Jai Courtney (The Suicide Squad, Divergent), Dangerous Animals is the kind of sturdy genre picture that’s made to, first and foremost, show audiences a wild time in the theater. If nothing else, it will certainly give them multiple reasons not to set foot in the water.
Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is an American surfer living off scraps as she makes her way through the beautiful Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. After embarking on a brief romantic fling with a local real estate agent named Moses (Josh Heuston), Zephyr goes to surf a recommended spot called “Blue Bench.” Her trip is cut short when she’s kidnapped by Tucker (Jai Courtney), a deranged boat captain who takes his victims out into the open water to feed them to hungry sharks and record the footage. As Moses searches for Zephyr, she engages in a physical and psychological battle against her captor, one wrong step away from being fish food.
Dangerous Animals Understands the Assignment
Despite its unusually prestigious premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the script for Dangerous Animals isn’t going to win any awards. That’s not to say there isn’t value in the work of screenwriter Nick Lepard (who also wrote Oz Perkins‘ next movie, Keeper). The concept of a rebellious surfer escaping a shark-obsessed serial killer who carries out demented, ritualistic feedings is unquestionably an original one. Plus, Jai Courtney’s Tucker is as great a horror villain on paper as he is in practice.
However, the screenplay functions more as a blueprint than anything else. Truly, the dialogue, minus a few quotable monologues from Tucker, is fairly standard. The plot doesn’t take any unexpected twists, either. Rather, Nick Lepard simply provides an enticing framework full of intimate set pieces that, assuming with the right director and performers, could be elevated into something genuinely exciting.
Luckily, director Sean Byrne and the cast all understood the assignment. Dangerous Animals feels like a spooky carnival ride, and that’s far from a bad thing. An opening scene showing Courtney’s chummy psychopath capturing a set of victims sets the exact kind of “terrifying, but in a comical way” tone that Byrne is going for. Visually, cinematographer Shelley Farthing-Dawe goes above and beyond. It’s difficult to tell what’s scarier: the dingy, Texas Chain Saw Massacre-inspired claustrophobia, the bright blue waters during the day, or the dark unknown of the open ocean at night.
Hassie Harrison is an Ace Final Girl
What Dangerous Animals excels at is keeping viewers on their toes. Every time Zephyr gains some ground, Tucker’s there to send her back to square one. Yet, with each attempt to escape, she gains more expertise. As a spectator, one can’t help but pump their fist at each of Zephyr’s crucial wins. The movie also isn’t afraid to put her through the ringer. Zephyr becomes increasingly hurt and psychologically damaged as the story progresses, with a particularly gruesome scene involving a set of handcuffs exceeding the threshold.
A sharp narrative focus on the prey caught in a trap, Zephyr, the predator serving as her captor, Tucker, and, of course, the sharks in the water creates an intimate struggle that must be seen through to the end. As the de facto “Final Girl,” one couldn’t ask for much better than Hassie Harrison (Yellowstone). The Texan actress gets an overdue showcase of her talent here. Harrison’s Zephyr is not the traditional horror movie victim. Purely through physical performance, she conveys Zephyr as someone very aware of their surroundings — charming but wary of the dangers that lie in the world.
When Zephyr gets locked up in the killer’s boat, it’s not a death sentence. Instead, it’s as if a caged animal has been finally set free. Hassie Harrison’s physical transformation as Zephyr sees her develop a steely determination that feels both earned and extremely exhilarating. In other words, she’s a total badass.
Jai Courtney Steals the Show with Ease
While Jai Courtney had flirted with this kind of unhinged role before as Captain Boomerang in the Suicide Squad movies, Dangerous Animals allows him to go full dirtbag. Against better judgment, Tucker is almost likable in his brazen evil. A (very unkempt) beard-twirling serial killer, he’s committed to his sadistic game, feeling entitled to put man against beast in a rigged fashion. His warped code is as inconsistent as the performance is consistently electrifying. Sometimes, a zany horror film like this only needs a mean bastard of a monster at the center to work. Courtney eats that challenge up, threatening to take the whole ocean with him.
An aspect that might come off as disappointing, though, is the actual usage of sharks. While there are moments of good old-fashioned shark chomping, that’s not really the focus here. They are kept in the background as a looming threat or, more prominently, as a thematic backdrop in the third act. Dangerous Animals attempts to say something about sharks as creatures that can be understood and even appreciated for their violent nature. Humanity can be quite fickle when pitted against that aspect of Mother Nature, susceptible to being molded by sinister urges. This is a neat idea, but it seems like something that merely crossed the filmmakers’ minds instead of being fully incorporated into the overarching themes.
Ultimately, Moviegoers Get What They Pay For
Regardless, Dangerous Animals is exactly what it needs to be: a damn fun time at the movie theater. With a proficient director, a memorable heroine in Hassie Harrison, and a villain whom people will love to hate (or hate to love) in Jai Courtney, Dangerous Animals showcases the power of an original concept executed well in the service of thrilling its niche audience. Among the stacked summer movie landscape, taking a dive into the playfully frightful waters of Sean Byrne’s horror film is far from the worst option.
Dangerous Animals is now playing in theaters!
Release Date: June 6, 2025.
Directed by Sean Byrne.
Written by Nick Lepard.
Produced by Troy Lum, Andrew Mason, Pete Shilaimon, Mickey Liddell, Chris Ferguson, & Brian Kavanaugh-Jones.
Executive Producers: Fred Berger, Michael Glassman, Mehrdod Heydari, Marlaina Mah, Giorgia Stawaruk, Jacob Yakob, & Joseph Yakob.
Main Cast: Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston, Ella Newton, Liam Greinke, & Rob Carlton.
Cinematographer: Shelley Farthing-Dawe.
Composer: Michael Yezerski.
Production Companies: LD Entertainment, Brouhaha Entertainment, Range Media Partners, & Oddfellows Entertainment.
Distributors: Independent Film Company & Shudder (United States).
Runtime: 98 minutes.
Rated R.
