‘Dangerous Animals’ Review: Jai Courtney’s Psychotic Performance Steals the Show

In Dangerous Animals, director Sean Byrne returns to horror with a film that’s both tightly wound and unashamedly outrageous. The setup is simple: a serial killer stalks victims, takes them out on the open sea, and feeds them to sharks. But what elevates the film beyond its pulpy premise is Jai Courtney’s wild-eyed performance as Tucker, the sea-worn maniac at its center. Set off the coast of Australia, this is a film that is, lean, bloody, and brimming with dread.

Courtney plays a twisted version of a shark tour operator who lures tourists onto his boat, only to turn them into chum. It’s a bold pivot for an actor once positioned as a conventional action lead in the likes of Terminator Genisys and A Good Day to Die Hard. But here, in salt-crusted villain mode, he finds his groove. “Tell me that ain’t the greatest show on Earth!” Tucker exclaims during one of the film’s more grotesque moments, eyes lit up with lunacy as footage of a feeding frenzy plays in the background.

Courtney’s Tucker is a menacing character, scarred, smirking, and driven by a twisted philosophy. His weapon of choice? The ocean’s most feared predator. Tourists think they’re getting a close-up view of sharks; they’re really signing up for a one-way trip into the deep. Byrne and screenwriter Nick Lepard inject enough tension and sick humor to make it more than disposable horror. The film clocks in under 100 minutes, but its lean pacing and sharp editing make sure the ride is anything but slow.

Hassie Harrison co-stars as Zephyr, a surfer who ends up trapped on Tucker’s floating house of horrors. While her backstory feels a little underdeveloped — the classic ‘lost soul with nothing left to lose’ — Harrison makes up for it with grit. It’s not long before she’s facing off against her captor with desperation and defiance. And a scene involving her thumb may have scarred me for life.

Courtney’s performance is undeniably the film’s centerpiece. Whether barking at a dog, leading a deranged rendition of “Baby Shark,” or casually dancing in a kimono while sipping wine, his take on Tucker is gloriously unhinged. He makes the character both monstrous and magnetic, the kind of villain that will make you wince, yet utterly command your attention, he’s psychotic.

Dangerous Animals is a slick, nasty survival thriller that will keep you glued.

Supporting characters like Moses (Josh Heuston) add an emotional tether to Zephyr’s plight, though they aren’t given much time to shine. It’s a small cast with a tight focus, and the script mostly avoids padding. Instead, it builds around its core tension: who will survive, and how? The violence is stylized, it doesn’t shy away from brutality. One standout sequence involving a crane and a slow descent into shark-infested water is as harrowing as anything the genre has produced in recent years, it’s inventive in its pure cruelty.

While Dangerous Animals plays in familiar waters, shark attack tropes, survival horror, isolated-location suspense, it still manages to inject originality. And Byrne keeps the tension tight with occasional flashes of dark humor. The pacing is brisk, with enough shocks and reversals to keep the audience guessing and squirming.

Byrne also subverts one of the most common shark-movie tropes: the sharks themselves aren’t the villains. They’re tools. Tucker is the only true monster here. And to some degree, he succeeds, the use of actual underwater footage gives the animals a sense of natural dignity, even as they play a role in the carnage.

Yes, the final act leans toward excess, you might feel a few eye-rolls coming on, but the film earns its indulgences. Ultimately, Dangerous Animals is more than just another entry in the shark horror canon. It’s a slick, nasty survival thriller that will keep you glued. It won’t redefine the field, but it knows exactly when to bite.

Dangerous Animals is now playing in cinemas worldwide.

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