Dan­ger­ous Ani­mals review – why sharks? They’re cinematic!

03 Jun 2025 / Released: 06 Jun 2025

Words by Anton Bitel

Directed by Sean Byrne

Starring Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, and Josh Heuston

A young woman in the water, holding a wooden pole, with a warm-toned lighting creating a dramatic atmosphere.
A young woman in the water, holding a wooden pole, with a warm-toned lighting creating a dramatic atmosphere.
4

Anticipation.

Big fan of Australian horror dude Sean Byrne.

4

Enjoyment.

Less Wolf Creek and more Shark Ocean.

4

In Retrospect.

Not the shark film I was expecting. Much, much better.

Preda­tors and prey share the same ter­rain in this psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly twist­ed shark thriller from genre film­mak­er Sean Byrne.

Near the begin­ning of Sean Byrne’s Dan­ger­ous Ani­mals, Surfers Par­adise local Moses (Josh Heuston) asks Amer­i­can free spir­it Zephyr (Has­sie Har­ri­son) if she likes the aisle or the win­dow seat. It is is his way of get­ting to know her which imme­di­ate­ly teas­es out the obvi­ous dif­fer­ences between them: he is an aisle per­son, open and socia­ble, while she is very much the win­dow type, pri­vate and aloof. Still, his gam­bit pays off, for they are soon sleep­ing togeth­er in the back of her van, parked out­side his house that she is not yet will­ing to enter – and in spite of her vaunt­ed inde­pen­dence, she likes Moses, and is think­ing of see­ing him again.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, though, Zephyr is about to fall into the clutch­es of Tuck­er (Jai Court­ney). A much more soli­tary crea­ture even than her­self, Tuck­er takes tourists out on his boat for shark dives, but he is also a ser­i­al killer who gets off on film­ing his clients, espe­cial­ly the women, being torn apart in the preda­tors’ jaws.

Like the sharks here that spec­tac­u­lar­ly swim around these chum-filled waters before mov­ing in for the kill, Byrne has come full cir­cle. For his career start­ed in his native Aus­tralia with the prom pan­de­mo­ni­um of 2009’s The Loved Ones, then moved state­side for the Texas-set saga of art, evil and errant mas­culin­i­ty in 2015’s The Devil’s Can­dy. Now, he returns to Australia’s Gold Coast. Yet the one con­stant in his films is hor­ror of a psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly twist­ed vari­ety, where preda­tors and prey share the same ter­rain and where sur­vival of the fittest often requires a rever­sal of roles.

Dan­ger­ous Ani­mals might sound like just anoth­er of the count­less, typ­i­cal­ly direct-to-video shark movies that have come in the wake of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975), but in fact this is more like a merg­er of Irv­ing Pichel and Ernest B Schoedsack’s The Most Dan­ger­ous Game (1932) and Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek (2005). For here in fact the title refers to the human play­ers, with the sharks just there as objec­tive cor­rel­a­tives for the char­ac­ters’ unfold­ing psychodrama.

So why sharks? The sim­ple answer is that they are cin­e­mat­ic, as Tuck­er knows full well. He is after all film­ing these deaths so that he can savour all the gory details lat­er while eat­ing his own meal – and he reg­u­lar­ly talks about his mur­ders as a show”, declares, Brief inter­mis­sion, ladies and gen­tle­men” when the rit­u­al has to be paused, and even likes to force one pris­on­er to watch the other’s ago­nis­ing dis­mem­ber­ment. There is a strong metacin­e­mat­ic ele­ment to all this show­man­ship, and as Zephyr must work out just how much like Tuck­er she is capa­ble of being, we too are con­front­ed with the nature of our own spec­ta­tor­ship, uncom­fort­ably sim­i­lar to Tucker’s, for in our win­dow seat on events, we are no cap­tive audience.

To keep cel­e­brat­ing the craft of film, we have to rely on the sup­port of our mem­bers. Join Club LWLies today and receive access to a host of benefits.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.