Dangerous Animals review: Jai Courtney sinks his teeth into shark horror

Sharks often get a bad rap in pop culture. So, with Dangerous Animals, it’s nice to see a film that goes out of its way to explain that they’re not only misunderstood, but really not all that interested in eating people.

Of course, Dangerous Animals then uses this information to make the multiple scenes where people are fed to sharks even more suspenseful: it turns out they will take a bite out of you if you’re being repeatedly dangled in front of them by a maniac. Guess it’s not quite safe to go back into the water just yet.

Tucker (Jai Courtney) runs a sightseeing boat out of Surfers Paradise. Tourists take a trip out to sea, he throws some chum in the water, they get in a cage that goes in the water and check out the sharks that come to feed. Only sometimes, as the opening scene makes clear, the tourists are the chum.

Watch the Dangerous Animals trailer.

Back on dry land, American drifter Zepher (Hassie Harrison) just wants to be left alone to drive her van from surf beach to surf beach. Queensland’s buffest real estate agent Moses (Josh Heuston) has other ideas – though at first he just needs her help getting his car started. But one thing leads to another, and the next morning he’s in love. Or at least in like. Either way, he made her breakfast.

Sadly, she’s already hit the road to catch the morning waves. Instead, Tucker catches her. Now she’s locked in the bowels of his tugboat, trapped with another backpacker (Ella Newton). Tucker’s idea of a good time is to suspend people overboard and videotape the sharks eating them alive.

A few hours ago Zepher was skipping out on breakfast; now she has to figure out a way to skip out on becoming lunch.

Dangerous Animals: moving parts

There’s not a lot of moving parts here – a boat, a killer, a few victims – but it takes a while to really get going. It seems obvious where things are heading, so it’s easy to feel a little frustrated when the early scenes seem to be taking their time. But all the scene-setting has a purpose, and once things kick into gear this doesn’t look back.

What initially seems straightforward rapidly breaks down into smaller and smaller parts, each one cranked up to create maximum tension over the 90-minute run time. How difficult is it to keep people trapped in a cell, then dangle them over the side of a boat until sharks eat them? You’d be surprised just how many things can go wrong, especially when your chosen victim doesn’t want to play along.

This isn’t big on gore, though there are a couple of nasty moments. There is a lot of physical damage though – Zepher is ready to fight tooth and nail to survive, and Tucker is definitely the type to hit a woman. Time and again the boat becomes a battleground, and just about anything can be a weapon in the wrong (or right) hands.

The relatively simple story structure gives director Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones) a lot of leeway and he takes full advantage, carefully setting up the layout of the boat so that we’re always aware of what paths there are to freedom and what stands in the way. Fights are efficient but brutal, the horror is short and sharp – often literally.

Harrison gives an impressively physical performance as the increasingly battered final girl while Heuston is sweet and mostly shirtless and Rob Carlton gets a fun minor role as the local dock’s resident derro. But this boat is a vessel for a very big performance from Courtney and he doesn’t steer it wrong.

A relentless killer lurking under a thin layer of knockabout Aussie larrikin – think a somehow more physically menacing Russell Crowe – Courtney takes what is otherwise a solid suspense thriller to a much more memorable level.

Whether he’s singing ‘Baby Shark’ to puzzled tourists, barking back at a barking dog, staring dead eyed at his home-made shark snuff videos or going from your best mate to a stab-happy killer without blinking, he’s the shark-worshipping star of the show.

It’s a role he can really sink his teeth into, and he’s not letting go.

Dangerous Animals is in cinemas from 12 June 2025.

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