Scare Value Award Winner – Best Actor
Top 10 Film of 2025
Dangerous Animals review
The age-old story. Boy meets girl. Girl is taken by serial killer who feeds his victims to sharks.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Dangerous Animals
Directed by Sean Byrne
Written by Nick Lepard
Starring Hassie Harrison, Josh Heuston and Jai Courtney
Dangerous Animals Review
The Regal Monday Mystery Movie has provided a lot of horror related movies for the public to see early and cheaply. Now that the chain has adopted AMC Screen Unseen’s policy of alerting people to which installments will be horror movies…it’s something worth keeping an eye out for. Not every movie is a winner, obviously…but some great ones have been a part of the promotion. Talk to Me, Companion and Bring Her Back all rated at 4 out of 5 or better after seeing them through this method. So did Sisu…which is decidedly not a horror movie but was so exciting for genre fans we reviewed it anyway. Another movie joins that select group following this week’s horror branded entry. Dangerous Animals is a perfectly unhinged bit of business. Not surprising given it’s the latest film from The Loved Ones director Sean Byrne.
If you’ve seen the trailer for Dangerous Animals…it’s exactly what you think it is. A serial killer who feeds his victims to sharks. If you think that sounds fun in an unhinged, crazy kind of way…you will be happy to know that you are correct in that regard as well. Although it puts its wacked out (and awesome) concept front and center…Dangerous Animals builds its foundation on the two simple concepts that have been helping horror movies succeed for decades. A great killer and a great final girl.
The great killer in this instance is not, in fact, the sharks in the water. Although they are the tool with which the film’s serial killer intends to dispatch his victims…they aren’t as interesting…or as dangerous…as the killer himself. Jai Courtney plays Tucker, a man who lures people onto his boat by offering a shark watching experience. Little do they know they are going to be getting a look at a shark’s insides. He also abducts people through more traditional means…whatever it takes to put on his favorite show. That show involves lowering victims on a hook into the ocean and filming their final moments as the sharks tear them apart.
Courtney is fantastic in the role. He’s equally dangerous and properly unhinged. He keeps his victims handcuffed below deck until feeding time arrives. Courtney is a force of nature in Dangerous Animals. He’s so entertaining that you’ll be excused for enjoying how sick his actions are. That’s always a danger when you give the antagonist such a showy and charismatic character…but let’s be real, it’s the story of a serial killer feeding his victims to sharks. We’re having fun with this. Tucker has had a bad shark encounter in his past. He’s basically Quint from Jaws if he had the opposite reaction to his experience on the USS Indianapolis. Still crazy…but on the side of the sharks.
Zephyr (Harrison) is our main protagonist. She’s a loner who spends her time surfing in Australia since it’s about as far away from her home in the US she can get. Zephyr is tough…but likable. Well…it’s not that hard to be likable when you are watching someone trying to escape captivity before they are fed to a shark…but we like her before that. She has a chance encounter with Moses (Josh Heuston) that leads to a possible connection. Unfortunately, before that can get very far, Zephyr is abducted by Tucker. Moses gives Zephyr her only possible (outside chance) of being found. Mostly, she realizes it’s going to be up to her.
Zephyr’s desperation to escape ratchets up considerably after Tucker shows her what he does with the people he captures. The sharks don’t always look great…but they’re hardly the point. Courtney’s committed performance combines with a strong suspenseful build to result in a spectacular scene that pays off Dangerous Animal’s concept. It’s a highlight of the movie. It sets the tone for the rest of the film, inspires Zephyr to do whatever it takes to fight back, and gives Courtney a standout scene that solidifies him as one of the best antagonists of the year.
The second half of Dangerous Animals plays a little too loose with believability at times…but it remains engaging and fun the whole way through. You probably understand that a movie about a serial killer feeding his victims to sharks isn’t trying to be Citizen Kane…or even whatever the horror equivalent of Citizen Kane is. What it needs to be is fun in an unhinged way. Thanks to Courtney’s performance as that serial killer and Harrison’s performance as the final girl…Dangerous Animals is a safe bet to accomplish that goal.
Scare Value
Dangerous Animals takes a sick and simple premise and plays it for twisted fun. Jai Courtney gives a tremendous performance as the delightfully evil Tucker. Hassie Harrison’s Zephyr is a great final girl. The story never veers far from “serial killer feeds people to sharks” because, honestly, why would it? It gets a bit too loose in the end…but the ride is so entertaining getting there that you won’t care.
4/5
Dangerous Animals Link
In theaters June 6, 2025 – Buy tickets on Fandango
