After nearly a decade away from the director’s chair, Australian filmmaker Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones, The Devil’s Candy) is back, and this time he’s brought sharks. Dangerous Animals is a lean, mean survival thriller that dives headfirst into B-movie territory but surfaces as something far more stylish, clever, and confident. It’s Jaws meets The Silence of the Lambs, with an Aussie twist and an impressive body count, and it just so happens to be the first Australian film to screen at Cannes in over ten years. Not bad for a flick about a guy feeding women to sharks.
The film wastes no time drawing blood. We meet a pair of tourists who stumble into the orbit of Tucker, a charismatic but deeply unnerving shark tour operator played to sinister perfection by Jai Courtney. Yes, that Jai Courtney, and he’s never been better. Tucker is the kind of guy you might want to have a beer with, right up until he pulls a knife. He kills one tourist and kidnaps the other, revealing himself as a shark-worshipping serial killer who believes the ocean’s deadliest predators demand human sacrifice. No, really.
It’s absurd, sure, but Byrne and co-writer Nick Lepard lean into the madness with a straight face, and that’s what makes it work. There’s no over-explaining Tucker, no cartoonish villain monologues. Just an eerie calm and a terrifying method. He drugs women, rigs them with harnesses, and drops them into shark-infested waters like he’s performing a twisted ritual, and he records it all.
But this isn’t just Tucker’s movie. Enter Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), a self-sufficient surfer who lives out of her van and avoids attachments. After a brief run-in with Moses (Josh Heuston), a likeable local trying to jumpstart his car (and maybe something more), Zephyr heads off in search of the perfect wave. Instead, she finds herself caught in Tucker’s sights. What follows is a brutal, stripped-back showdown between two loners , one hunting, one surviving, with great white sharks circling below.
Dangerous Animals keeps things tight. The isolation of the ocean setting means there’s nowhere to hide, allowing Byrne to focus on raw, physical action instead of cheap jump scares or bloated backstories. The hits land hard. The shark scenes are gnarly. And Michael Yezerski’s killer score elevates every chase, punch, and splash with an old-school pulse.
If there’s a downside, it’s that the opening act drags slightly before the real thrills kick in. And the ending throws in a few too many “wait, is it over?” moments. But that doesn’t dull the impact. Byrne delivers the kind of horror that respects the genre while still having fun with it, and you can feel that passion in every frame.
Dangerous Animals is bloody, brutal, and best of all, smart about its chaos. It’s exactly the kind of Aussie genre flick that deserves a spot on your radar ,and on your watchlist. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another ten years for Byrne to bite again.
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