The Plot: American surfer Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is something of a lone wolf, but she connects with local Australian Moses (Josh Heuston). She disappears the next day on the Gold Coast and he goes looking for her. She’s had a rather nasty encounter with fisherman and resident serial killer Tucker (Jai Courtney), who keeps her and the next victim Heather (Ella Newton) on his boat. They’re on standby for a dinner date with the hungry sharks circling just below them…
The Verdict: B-Movies, whether of the vintage or modern variety, can vary wildly in quality and often live up to their name. They’re not meant to be anything meaningful or long lasting in memory, but while they have your attention there’s the opportunity to hold onto it and exploit it for all its worth. These are the rarer breeds of B-Movies that know what they are and just run with it, amping up its scenario to thrilling effect. Case in point: Sean Byrne’s third feature Dangerous Animals. Following The Loved Ones and The Devil’s Candy, Byrne has added another helping of pulpy genre cinema to the ever-expanding catalogue of shark films now some half century since Steven Spielberg scared everyone out of the water. Byrne’s take on the shark movie though is that humans are just as dangerous as the eating machines swimming around waiting for the dinner bell to be rung.
Nick Lepard’s script is clever enough to set up its characters in unexpected ways. Zephyr has a one-night-stand with Moses, so they don’t owe each other anything afterwards. They have no apparent connection beyond this fleeting one, yet Lepard shows an inkling of Moses caring for Zephyr nonetheless. Zephyr doesn’t come across as the damsel in distress type, which is what draws Tucker to her too. He sees a similar fire in her and thinks that they’re both sharks who will feed off others if they have to. Tucker himself is a ready-made psychopath, so no need for a tragic backstory or some belittling explanation for his behaviour. This is a guy who sings Baby Shark to his guests (you won’t look at it the same way again), then eats his morning cereal while doing the serial killer thing of watching tapes of his victims meeting their grisly fates. As he says, he’s more of a horror fan than a romcom fan.
Byrne pits these two opposing forces against each other as it becomes a battle of wills on Tucker’s boat, a sort-of Dead Calm with the threat of death by shark not far away. It’s interesting then that Byrne doesn’t exploit the sharks for obvious gains. There’s a level of respect for the sharks that is unexpected for a B-Movie. They’re often just there as instant death in maritime-themed films (and often in poor CGI), but not in this one. Byrne is more interested in the interplay and character psychology between the strong-willed Zephyr and the psychotic Tucker, who may have finally met his match – presumably they are the Dangerous Animals of the title. Byrne ratchets up the tension with each scene, playing into the better aspects of survival horror wherein predictable scenarios lead to unpredictable behaviour. Just when accusations of misogyny could be thrown at Byrne, he then shows that Tucker is an equal opportunities offender. Touché.
Harrison does a good job in steely heroine antics, while Courtney is consistently on form with a more controlled, tightly-wound performance than his wildcard Boomerang from the Suicide Squad films. There’s a knowing sense of casual, sadistic glee in his performance which makes him both scary and funny from scene to scene. Byrne wraps all this bloody mess up in a well-shot and staged film that holds the attention right through to its thrilling and chilling conclusion. Dangerous Animals isn’t going to win any awards, but as a solidly entertaining slice of B-Movie madness it delivers the goods and rams home its point that nobody is safe on the water… or out of it.
Rating: 4 / 5
Review by Gareth O’Connor
In short: Thrills and chills
Directed by Sean Byrne.
Starring Jai Courtney, Hassie Harrison, Josh Heuston, Ella Newton.