Aaron Ploof
There are literal as well as metaphorical sharks in Dangerous Animals. Both the underwater predator and its human counterparts feature in this intense and entertaining horror/thriller. The feature’s serial killer villain, Bruce Tucker (The Suicide Squad’s Jai Courtney), finds his match in rebellious surfer, Zephyr (Yellowstone’s Hassie Harrison). What starts as a kidnapping soon evolves into an all-out battle for survival on the Australian waters as Zephyr must outsmart and escape her captor before he feeds her to the sharks.
Zephyr is introduced after a chilling (and gory) prologue to the film. Self-sufficient and sneaky, she’s not above sneaking out a pail of ice cream in a soda cup from the local gas station, but her thieving skills need work. Moses (Josh Heuston), a random passerby dressed like a Mormon, blackmails her in his attempt to get a jumper cable. The two discover they have similar tastes in music (Creedence Clearwater Revival songs are the best) and quickly hit it off. She quotes Point Break to Moses and brags about her record, having eaten nine bread rolls in one day. After spending the night, Zephyr bails in the morning but goes missing soon after.
Tucker runs a shark cage tourism service, but his actual business is in serial killing. He tracks down unsuspecting young women and holds them hostage on his boat, sapping their will to live. When night rolls around and he finds he’s in the mood, he’ll hook up his camcorder, strap his victim to a harness, and lower her into the shark-infested, choppy waters. Zephyr knows her turn is coming soon; how will she escape this nightmare?
Two Evenly Matched Sharks
Jai Courtney immediately makes an impression as Dangerous Animal’s villain. He was the director’s first choice to play the part, and it’s easy to see why. Neglected by his parents, he survived a shark bite as a child. Now he channels that aggression onto his victims in an effort to drown the source of his pain. Courtney is able to imbue both charm and dead-eye creepiness whenever the situation calls for it. Whether he’s singing “Baby Shark” to his soon-to-be victims or creepily dancing in his undies, he commands the scenes he’s in. He compares himself to the shark, and Zephyr to the marlin in their game of constant catch and release. An intelligent and persistent antagonist, Tucker relishes the back-and-forth game that the two evenly matched characters play.
For her part, Harrison’s Zephyr meets the killer where he stands. Unyielding in her determination to escape, she’s resourceful and singular, just like a shark. Seeing possibility where others only see dead ends, there are many times she turns the tables unexpectedly on Tucker. He compares her to the predator, wearing her down by calling her a loner, a singular and hard-shelled creature. One that isn’t suited for a relationship with a man like Moses, who’s soft and caring.
The Thematic Meat
This is where most of the thematic meat of the story comes into play. Zephyr is a loner. Having been raised in the foster care system, she didn’t get much love as a child. She’s come to rely only on herself, pushing those she cares for away. As she tells Moses, the reason she picked up surfing is that there was nothing for her on land. But the two characters share chemistry (one that the actors hit spot on), and her meeting with Moses is what opens her eyes to the possibility that perhaps she can let others in, that there is a connection beyond what she experiences in her bond to the water she surfs on.
As we learn, she’s the foil to Tucker. Both experienced parental neglect, both did not get the love they yearned for, and both withdrew from the world in a rebellious streak. But where Tucker has lost his humanity, Zephyr still has kindness and compassion within her.
Intense Scenes
It’s easy then, to cheer for Zephyr’s escape, to hope that somehow, Moses will be able to track her down in time to save her. While he’s busy sleuthing, Tucker has his hands full with his feisty captor. If plans go his way, he’ll soon have a VHS tape of her final moments before her death by sharks.
Speaking of the sharks, most of the footage in Dangerous Animals features real-life actual sharks. Although the sharks did not share the water with the actors, the filmmakers plowed through hundreds of hours of footage to find sharks that would actually work when rotoscoped in. This authentic footage brings an intensity to the proceedings as the characters face off against the animals.
Catch and Release
There’s only so much that can go on in a thriller about a serial killer with sharks, though. As mentioned before, there is a lot of “catch and release” or, to be more accurate, “catch and escape” between Tucker and Zephyr, and it does eventually get repetitive. We return to the crane and the harness time and time again, and there was a part of me that wished that something different would happen in the last few minutes of the film.
Perhaps the characters could have had a showdown in a different location, for instance. But in a movie mostly filmed in a singular place, with a villain who only has one primary way of killing, this is what they went with. Still, this is a minor complaint in an otherwise very entertaining film with excellent performances and enough character development to get you significantly invested.
You’re Safer in the Water
On the 50th anniversary of Jaws, Dangerous Animals delivers a serial killer movie featuring sharks, an original idea for a horror flick. Director Sean Byrne and Screenwriter Nick Lepard have hit on something special, and actors Harrison, Courtney, and Heuston bring their A-game. Dangerous Animals is a solid horror movie with an entertaining twist, and I enjoyed the time I spent watching it.
Score: 8/10
Dangerous Animals is now playing in theatres nationwide.
