Dangerous Animals is an Australian horror-thriller showing that the fieriest creatures on the high seas are not necessarily underwater.
Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is an American surfer who lives and travels around in a van on the Gold Coast. She has the misfortune to meet Tucker (Jai Courtney), a boat captain who runs expeditions for shark cage diving and is a serial killer. Zephyr must fight for survival whilst her only hope for rescue is a man she had a one-night stand with.
Dangerous Animals had some pedigree behind it. It was directed by Sean Byrne, the director of the cult horror film The Loved Ones, and it had its premiere at the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival. It had earned a lot of critics and audiences.
Dangerous Animals can be summed up as Wolf Creek meets Jaws. The Jaws comparisons were pretty obvious since both shark movies used boats as major settings. Wolf Creek was a cult Australian horror-thriller where a group of travelers are abducted and tortured by a deranged wilderness man. There was also a little bit of Hostel in Dangerous Animals, since the Slovak-set film also featured travelers getting abducted and tortured.
As a concept, Dangerous Animals was deliciously evil. It twisted the formula of shark movies where people are being hunted by the beasts or hunting the aquatic creatures. Tucker used them to torment his victims, and they were the perfect way to dispose of a body. It would be terrifying to be lowered slowly into the water with sharks swarming around.
However, there was a drawback to the premise: it was limited. Most of the film was set on the boat, and this resulted in the film becoming repetitive. Zephyr would escape only to be captured again. Tucker only had one weapon in his arsenal, which was whipping up the sharks into a feeding frenzy. There wasn’t enough variety, and Dangerous Animals would have been more impactful if it were a short film. There were some grizzly moments and injections of dark humor, but it didn’t add enough flavor.
Jai Courtney played against type by being the rugged sociopath. He was hairy and, although big and muscular, had a massive scar all over his body. He wasn’t the handsome hunk or action hero he has been previously. Tucker was imposing, yet oddly charming, like when he put one of his clients at ease. There was a little bit of Mark Lewis from Peeping Tom in Tucker since he liked to record his crimes and became frantic if his equipment was damaged.
Harrison had a Jennifer Lawrence quality. She looked a bit like the Oscar-winning actress, and her character had a Katniss Everdean quality. Zephyr was strong-willed and fiery, and she wasn’t going down without a fight. Zephyr had a prickly personality and was a loner, but she also had a sense of compassion for her fellow captives. She was a fighter and wasn’t going down without a fight.
Dangerous Animals deserves some attention for trying to shake up the shark movie formula, and it does have a midnight movie quality, but it stretched out the premise too thinly.
