Horror movies have always given sound advice of where not to go on your vacation.  For example, you really shouldn’t stay at that ominous-looking hotel up on the hill (Psycho), or your friend’s cabin in the middle of the woods (Evil Dead), or that hostel in Slovakia (Hostel).  Dangerous Animals suggests that despite the obvious reasons for visiting Brisbane’s Gold Coast in Australia, you probably don’t want to go there either.  Because even an exciting tourist activity like swimming with the sharks may very well end up being unexpectedly life-altering.  But if you really can’t resist, definitely let your loved ones know what your plans are before you climb aboard that boat.  That way, they’ll know where to start searching for your body parts when you go missing.

As far as opening scenes that grab you, the one that kicks off Dangerous Animals is a doozy.  Heather (Ella Newton) and Greg (Liam Greinke) are vacationing friends who happen to be staying at the same hostel while vacationing in Brisbane.  Unfortunately, they overslept and everyone in their group left without them.  With no plans of their own, they impulsively decide to go swimming with the sharks.   After all, what could be more fun than being submerged in a rusty cage, wearing only your bathing suit, while sharks size you up for their breakfast?

Heather and Greg hit on Tucker Adventures for this experience, perhaps because he’s cheaper than other options.  (Hostel digs imply little money.)  Tucker (Jai Courtney) seems like a friendly chap, with his curly hair, big toothy grin and telltale Australian accent.  He sounds just like Steve Irwin, or Crocodile Dundee?  Anyway, Tucker welcomes his patrons aboard and they set out to sea.  But when the big moment arrives, Heather is scared.  Tucker has seen this before and knows exactly what will put her nerves at ease–singing “Baby Shark”!  It works like a charm and the two do what they set out to do.  However, while Greg tells Tucker how amazing it was, Tucker stabs him and chucks him overboard.  Heather screams, and you know that Tucker has some terrorizing fun in store for her later.

We are then introduced to Zephyr (Hassie Harrison).  She’s a beautiful blond vacationing by herself.  She lives out of her van and subsists on a diet of large dinner rolls.  When she’s tired of those, she pilfers ice cream from gas stations using a big gulp cup.  (Very clever.)  A young, well-dressed young man named Moses (Josh Heuston) in search of jumper cables and spies Zephyr and asks for help, to which she replies with nope.  Moses follows her and says he’ll tattle on her unless she helps him.  Blackmailing a girl for help is usually not a good idea, but it works spectacularly for Moses.  Not only does Zephyr give him a lift and help get his car started, she rocks his world in the back of her van.

Zephyr understandably makes a strong impression on Moses, so he sneaks out to make her breakfast.  But she doesn’t trust people as a rule and drives off while Moses was playing IHOP chef.  Unbeknownst to Zephyr, Tucker has been targeting her as his next victim.  He grabs her while she’s distracted, renders her unconscious and puts her into a duffel bag.  (Being skinny definitely puts a girl at a disadvantage when fending off serial killers.)

When Zephyr awakens she finds herself handcuffed on a bed in a dingy room on Tucker’s ship of horrors.  Her bunk mate is Heather, who is in shock over what happened to Greg.  Zephyr, however, is a fighter and tries to break free, to no avail.  When Tucker appears, he’s bearing water and Vegemite sandwiches.  The girls are thirsty and drink the water, which is drugged and knocks them out.

When they awaken, Zephyr is strapped to a fishing chair and Heather is connected to the shark cage lift.  Tucker tells the girls that because of tourist attractions like his, sharks have learned to associate ships with eating.  Uh oh.  After firing up his video recorder, Tucker lowers Heather into the water and is promptly attacked by sharks.  As Billy Crystal once famously said in City Slickers, “This was not on the brochure!”

Meanwhile, on the mainland, Moses is trying to track down his dream girl.  The police are no help because he doesn’t know Zephyr’s last name.  However, Moses is smarter than the average copper and checks the footage from a surf cam pointed at the beach where Zephyr’s van was found.  He sees her van arrive, then Tucker’s truck driving off.  Moses heads to where Tucker is docked, by himself, completely unaware of what awaits him.  After a scuffle, the three depart for open waters, where Tucker pans on using his passengers as chum for his next video production.  Unwilling to see herself or Moses die for Tucker’s entertainment, Zephyr (literally) stops at nothing to give Tucker a taste of his own medicine and save her sweetheart in the process.

Recommendation

Dangerous Animals is a savvy horror movie mashup of serial killer and shark movie genres.  While the film doesn’t reinvent either, it successfully combines them into an original way that stands on its own.  Although identifying its many cinematic influences (too numerous to name here) is part of the fun, the movie uses those influences as the building blocks for a story that is fresh, inventive and incredibly scary.

Jai Courtney, who had a brief run in Hollywood as the next Great White Hope, is shockingly good as Tucker, the shark tank sightseer.  When he’s not playing the stereotypical gregarious Australian adventurer, Courtney turns him into a dead-eyed, remorseless predator who opines on all sorts of things, especially the nature sharks.  As someone who was underwhelmed by Courtney’s performances in Divergent and Terminator Genesys, Courtney is a revelation in this movie, which gives him ample opportunities to be wild and threatening.

Hassie Harrison is the perfect match for Courtney’s inspired lunacy.  As Zephyr, Harrison’s natural beauty quickly attracts men with both good and bad intentions.  However, Harrison uses hints of her character’s difficult history in the screenplay to portray Zephyr with an inner strength and resourcefulness when things go horribly wrong.  She’s also convincingly feral in one of the most memorable scenes I’ve seen in a horror film in a while.

Continuing with the theme of performances that are more than meets the eye, Josh Heuston is very good as Moses, the handsome, love-struck young man searching for the woman who stole his heart.  Heuston turns what could have been a naive, pretty-boy role into a sensitive and surprisingly empathic character.  Ella Newton is also heartbreaking as the girl who dies early in these movies.  The way her character sadly asks for her mom before meeting her fate was haunting.

Director Sean Byrne and Writer Nick Lepard get a lot of credit for their efficient approach to this movie.  Aside from a brief romantic interlude in the beginning, the movie is a model of lean and mean, no-nonsense storytelling.  Every squirm-in-your-seat moment builds upon the last as the story marches towards its very satisfying conclusion.  Kudos are also deserved for editor Kasra Rassoulzadegan, composer Michael Yezerski and cinematographer Shelley Farthing-Dawe for their roles in making this small-budget movie the best it could be.

Unbearably taut and pitiless, Dangerous Animals is a terrific people versus shark movie.   It’s a well-acted thriller that takes its genre inspirations seriously and uses them to great effect.  Recommended.

Analysis

It wasn’t long ago that movies pitting humans against sharks were solid performers at the box office.  Consider these numbers (which include domestic and worldwide totals):

• The Shallows (2016)  $55m / $118m
• 47 Meters Down (2017) $44m / $62m
• The Meg (2018) $145m / $527m
• 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019) $22m / $47m
• Meg 2 (2023) $82m / $397m

Aside from the two sequels underperforming slightly, there’s nothing to indicate that audiences aren’t interested in seeing this particular kind of movie in theaters.  In my opinion, there is no better way to see people thrashing about in open water with sharks than on a big screen.  However, recent shark movies have been relegated to streaming platforms:

• Something in the Water (2024) Hulu
• No Way Up (2024) Hulu
• Maneater (2022) Hulu
• The Last Breath (2024) Hulu
• Under Paris (2024) Netflix

While I haven’t seen any of those movies, I would think that a couple of them could have made money in theaters.

The familiar versus the new

So far this year I’ve seen three original horror movies that have been ignored by moviegoing audiences:  Heart Eyes, Companion and Dangerous Animals.  In addition to each of them being genre mashups, they are all original stories.  Consider these box office results:

• Heart Eyes $30m / $32m
• Companion $20m / $36m
• Dangerous Animals $2m / $2m
• Final Destination: Bloodlines $126m / $265m

Now, I didn’t include Final Destination 6 to throw shade at the movie’s fans.  People are free to like what they like.  And the results (so far) for Dangerous Animals have been understandably kneecapped by IFC’s tendency to give its films a token release (with minimal marketing) before making them available on the Shudder streaming service.  However, it’s clear that today’s horror audiences rarely seek out and embrace new and original stories in theaters.

There are, of course, notable exceptions to this rule:

• The Monkey (2025) $39m / $63m
• Longlegs (2024)  $74m / $125m
• Talk to Me (2023)  $48m / $91m
• M3GAN (2023) $95m / $181m

However, it looks to me that audiences rarely seek out films with original stories unless they are preceded with “buzz”.

IP never truly dies

Which leads directly to my next point.  I’ve noticed horror fans on social media discussing the fate of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the Thirteenth franchises.  The former is up for bid, while the latter has languished due to legal rights issues.

To put things into perspective, the first Friday the 13th movie came out in 1980.  There have been eleven sequels, the last one in 2009.  The Texas Chain Saw Massacre arrived in 1974.  There have been eight sequels since, the last appearing on Netflix in 2022.  Again, I don’t want to chide people for wanting yet another TCM or F13 film, but do fans of both really think that the next entry for either could possibly be better than Heart Eyes?

In the current theatrical landscape, I understand that it’s far easier for filmmakers to get backing for a sequel or reboot of a very familiar property.  This is because studios don’t have to worry about explaining the concept to moviegoers.  Sure, they do have to convince moviegoers that the movie in question will either meet or exceed their expectations.  But they don’t have to explain what a Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Saw, Exorcist, Halloween or Final Destination film will be about.  As a result of moviegoer resistance, the studios have capitulated, giving them more of what they want to pay for.  It’s why we’re getting another I Still Know What You Did Last Summer movie this year.  There’s no concept to explain, no convincing to be done.  Here’s a movie that you’ll be instantly familiar with.  Enjoy!

I do hope horror movie fans seek out Dangerous Animals on SVOD and/or streaming when it becomes available.  It’s the rare movie that is both familiar and new at the same time, and thoroughly entertaining.

Myriad influences

A non-comprehensive list of the films I thought of while watching Dangerous Animals:

Deep Calm (1989):  a beautiful woman (Nicole Kidman) gets abducted at sea by a seductive psychopath (Billy Zane).

The Shallows (2016):  blond surfer (Blake Lively) out on her own gets attacked by a shark

Open Water (2003):  vacationers out on a diving adventure are abandoned and try not be be eaten by sharks

Silence of the Lambs (1991):  serial killer dances to his favorite tunes in his robe while his prey are shackled in a hidden room.  His latest victim finds reminders of prior victims etched in the walls of their holding cell.

Manhunter (1986) / Red Dragon (2002):  a surprisingly insightful serial killer gives ominous monologues to his victims before killing them.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011):  a serial killer (Stellan Skarsgård) who kills his victims because he’s enthralled by the moment when they die.

Creep (2004):  a serial killer who records the moments of his victims’ deaths on video tape to be enjoyed later.

The Black Phone (2021):  a serial killer who kills a friend/neighbor/family member when they discover what they’re doing.

Hostel (2005):  vacationers staying at a hostel in a foreign country are set upon by the natives.

Jaws (1975):  the granddaddy of shark movies.  Jai Courtney’s monologues reminded me of Robert Shaw’s Quint.

Bite sized morsels

The songs played throughout Dangerous Animals caught my attention for various reasons.

“Dancing with Myself” – The Donnas

I remember watching Billy Idol’s original version on video music television shows and MTv back in 1981.  Idol was in the process of transitioning from being a member of Generation X to a solo career, so there are two versions of the same song.  The version in the movie when we are introduced to Zephyr is by The Donnas from 2004.  (This cover version also played during the closing credits of the original Mean Girls movie released that year.)  Credit to whomever assembled the soundtrack for including a song that audiences from three generations (X, Millennial and Z) would recognize.

“Ooby Dooby” – Credence Clearwater Revival

The song dates back to 1956, released as the B-side to a Roy Orbison single.  I was familiar with the CCR version before seeing this movie, but I prefer the Orbison version to theirs.  It’s one of CCR’s few covers that minimizes the original, in stark comparison to their versions of “Proud Mary” and “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” (which are eternal).

Listening to Zephyr and Moses debate the merits of the song, I was incredulous that either would know about CCR in 2025, let alone a cover version of a song on an album (Cosmo’s Factory) that features six indisputable classic rock staples (“Travelin’ Band”, “Lookin’ out My Back Door”, “Run Through the Jungle”, “Up Around the Bend”, “Who’ll Stop the Rain”, “Grapevine” and “Long as I Can See the Light”.)

“Evie” – Stevie Wright

This is the song that plays while Tucker dances around in his underwear and a silk robe.  Wright isn’t a native Australian, having moved there with his family when he was nine.  It’s one of three songs on the soundtrack performed by Australians, including “The Real Thing” by Russell Morris and “Wintersong” by Bob Evans.