Dangerous Animals (2025) - Movie Review

Not gonna lie, Dangerous Animals marketing team was cooking.

What if I told you there was a great director, one of the best of his generation, and you wouldn’t recognize him if I introduced you face-to-face?

What if I told you that you wouldn’t even recognize his name?

And what if I told you that his latest film is about a serial killer who wields sharks as a weapon?

Gotcha.

Let’s discuss.

Dangerous Animals is a 2025 psychological thriller / dark comedy film brought to us by the brilliant director Sean Byrne. If you haven’t heard of him, and I’m fairly sure you haven’t—drop what you’re doing and watch 2015’s The Devil’s Candy and 2009’s The Loved Ones. It’s extremely rare for a filmmaker not to experience a sophomore slump. It’s even rarer for a director to pump out back-to-back fire. Byrne is in that rare class, and while his most recent release doesn’t hold up to his previous films, it’s still one of the best movies I’ve watched all year.

The film focuses on nomadic surfergirl, Zephyr, as she makes her way down Australia’s Gold Coast. She’s a solitary figure both on and off the waves. She lives out of her van, moving from beach to beach, never staying long enough for her past to catch up with her. She keeps her motivations close to her chest, but it’s clear that she’s a survivor. So when she’s abducted from a beach in the early morning hours and wakes up in the hold of a serial killer’s ship, she immediately begins to plan her escape. The only problem is that the killer driving the ship is equally as cunning, and a strong-willed victim does not deter him. He actually prefers it and uses her resilience as an excuse to make his machinations even more insane. Will Zephyr escape the clutches of this twisted madman, or will she end up in a shark’s belly? Find out in tonight’s feature, Dangerous Animals.

Go watch this movie.

Sean Byrne’s worst movie is better than some people’s best. No, this movie doesn’t live up to his last effort, the masterpiece of psychological horror, The Devil’s Candy—very few films do—It’s still a charming, inventive thriller with a great ensemble, and one hell of a Jai Courtney performance.

Everything starts with our killer, portrayed by Jai Courtney. Courtney has been absolutely shit on due to his unfortunate luck of starring in some awful movies like 2021’s Jolt and 2016’s disastrous Suicide Squad.

Was he the reason they were awful? No.

Does that fact help his reputation? Also, No.

But audience opinion of an actor really doesn’t sour unless they are unlikable in real life, or do something horrendous. In Jai Courtney’s case, I think he’s flown under the radar at worst, and he’s been the best part of the films he’s been in. You can also tell people like working with him. He hasn’t had a year since 2011 that he hasn’t been in multiple releases. It helps that Courtney is exceedingly charismatic and a fantastic actor when allowed to let loose, and boy, does he let loose here.

Opposite him is an actress I am not super familiar with, Hassie Harrison. Apparently, her big break was on one of Paramount’s Yellowstone shows, but I have never had any interest in watching a show about rich people doing shady stuff to get richer. So, this is my introduction to her as a performer, and I was pleasantly surprised. She looks like a normal woman. She looks like a natural beauty. I did see people saying she’s had a ton of plastic surgery, but looking at side-by-side pictures of her from the start of her career to the current day, she just looks like she’s matured and has a better makeup artist doing her hair and lashes. Either way, she has flaws, which make her much easier to root for than a plastic automaton. She performs well here, playing the silent, seething protagonist. She conveys the story of her character’s past through her non-verbal performance effortlessly.

And while there is a love interest played masterfully by the intensely likable Josh Heuston, it’s the relationship and chemistry between Courtney and Harrison’s characters that drives the ship. But don’t take that the wrong way, this is not a movie that features any type of Sexual violence.

It’s refreshing to have a horror film where Pedophilia and Sexual Assault are not featured.

Rape and Sexual Assault are overused in modern horror. I blame Ryan Murphy, as every single season of American Horror Story has a sexual assault, if not multiple graphic sexual assault scenes. It feels like a fetish shared in the writers’ room for the popular series that infected the rest of the genre. I can happily say this film doesn’t fall into that sinkhole and instead focuses on a killer whose motivations are much more interesting.

That’s not to say the film is perfect, far from it. The initial 30 minutes feel sluggish, but after that, the film is nothing but tension. There’s a ticking clock on every scene, and then there’s the unpredictability of the villain, whose machinations make sense only to himself.

Another downside is the obvious lack of SFX budget. The sharks in the film are definitely stock footage, overlaid on the footage of the actors and/or CGI that doesn’t quite blend. However, the way the shark scenes are shot is so artistic that the uncanny nature of the poor rendering actually kind of works.

This isn’t an overly gory movie, nor is it very exploitative. While there is one consensual sex scene, I don’t recall any nudity other than the male lead’s ass.

This film is just plain fun.

Despite its flaws, this movie has stuck with me since viewing. I was surprised how much my viewing partners enjoyed it as well. I’ve had them message me or bring up the film in conversation multiple times since our watch party. Hopefully, word of mouth helps the film gain more momentum, because it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

Check this one out streaming exclusively on Shudder/AMC+.