Dangerous Animals Review: Sharks, Serial Killers and a Bloody Good Time at Sea

A Villain Without a Mask

The story wastes no time in introducing Tucker, played by Jai Courtney with unnerving confidence. Tucker is a shark tour operator who masks his cruelty with charisma. He is the sort of man who charms tourists on the deck one moment and unleashes horror the next.

Courtney plays him not as a frothing madman but as a predator who enjoys the performance as much as the kill.

Tucker’s obsession with sharks stems from his own survival of a childhood attack. Newspaper clippings of that incident are framed in the cabin of his boat, serving as both trophies and twisted justification. He sees sharks as divine arbiters of power and blood, and he offers sacrifices to them in the form of abducted women. The ritual is horrifying in its precision.

Victims are drugged, bound, and lowered into waters teeming with chum. Their deaths are filmed, not for fame or ransom, but to satisfy Tucker’s own sense of worship.

This clarity of villainy is refreshing. Byrne does not waste time with lengthy backstory or forced psychology. Tucker is defined by action. We are not asked to sympathize with him, only to fear him.

The Surfer Who Refuses to Sink

On the other side of this tale is Zephyr, played by Hassie Harrison. She is a nomadic surfer who lives out of her van, wandering coastlines in search of perfect waves. Zephyr avoids attachments and thrives on solitude. She is presented as someone who chooses freedom over comfort, which makes her the perfect foil for Tucker’s obsessive need for control.

Her introduction is gentle. She flirts briefly with Moses, a young man played by Josh Heuston, who spots her at a campsite. Their chemistry is light and believable. They share a night together that feels spontaneous rather than romantic destiny.

In most thrillers, such a setup signals doom, and Byrne is not interested in subverting that expectation. By dawn, Zephyr is paddling into the sea and directly into Tucker’s orbit.

Harrison brings both physicality and vulnerability to the role. She looks like someone who can endure punishing conditions yet still seems human enough to make mistakes. This balance keeps the audience invested as she becomes the central figure in Tucker’s ritualistic nightmare.

Sharks as Silent Executioners

The conceit of sharks as instruments of murder could easily veer into parody. Byrne’s decision to treat them with reverence is what saves the film. The sharks are not cartoon beasts. They are glimpsed in flashes of fin, bursts of water, and quick shadows beneath the surface.

Their presence is suggested as much as shown, and that restraint amplifies the dread.

Tucker frames them as gods that demand sacrifice. When he exhales after a victim is devoured, it is not triumph but relief, as though he has completed a holy act. This religious fervor makes his violence even more unsettling. The killings are staged with grim ceremony rather than frenzy, giving the film a unique texture among creature features.

Byrne uses the ocean itself as a character. The vast, indifferent expanse of water becomes a stage for survival where nature is both ally and enemy.

The sea swallows evidence, hides predators, and isolates characters in ways that heighten the claustrophobia of the story.

A Duel Between Drifters

The heart of the film lies in the clash between Zephyr and Tucker. Both are outsiders shaped by solitude, but they represent opposite philosophies. Zephyr embraces movement and freedom, while Tucker is consumed by ritual and dominance. Their encounters are staged like duels, each testing the other’s endurance and cunning.

Harrison and Courtney rise to the challenge of this dynamic. Their scenes together pulse with tension, especially when Zephyr’s survival instincts kick in.

The choreography of fights on the slippery boat deck, the plunges into shark-infested waters, and the desperate scrambles through narrow cabins all carry a raw, physical edge. The film is at its best when it pares down to these primal confrontations.

Familiar Moves in New Waters

Despite the originality of its central conceit, the story often falls back on predictable beats. The audience can see early on that Moses will play the role of secondary rescuer, noticing Zephyr’s absence and attempting to intervene.

The pattern of capture, escape, and recapture becomes familiar by the midpoint. By the time the final act arrives, the repetition of these cycles begins to blunt the tension rather than escalate it.

The dialogue does not always help. Some exchanges sound like stock lines lifted from other survival thrillers. When Tucker claims Zephyr is “just like him,” her rebuttal that she is “nothing like him” feels more obligatory than earned. These moments threaten to flatten otherwise dynamic scenes.

Where Byrne Still Shines

Even with these stumbles, Byrne demonstrates why he has a reputation as a genre stylist. His command of pacing keeps the ninety-minute runtime sharp. The film never lingers too long on exposition, and the editing maintains a rhythm that alternates between suffocating stillness and bursts of violence.

The score leans into classical orchestration rather than modern synths, giving the film an oddly timeless energy. Combined with Byrne’s careful staging of action, it makes the movie feel like a throwback to an earlier era of horror cinema. This mix of old techniques and outrageous concept is what makes Dangerous Animals unique, even when the story wobbles.

Highs, Lows and Final Bites

The biggest strength of Dangerous Animals is its willingness to commit to a ludicrous idea without flinching. A lesser filmmaker might have treated the shark-serial killer mashup as parody. Byrne takes it seriously, and that conviction makes the absurd premise oddly compelling.

The weaknesses are equally clear. The film occasionally circles itself, repeating survival scenarios until the climax feels more like a loop than a crescendo.

The supporting characters are thin, serving mostly as bodies to be disposed of. And some potentially iconic moments, such as Tucker leading tourists in a rendition of “Baby Shark,” do not land with the strange brilliance they promise.

Still, the film delivers what it sets out to offer. It is a guilty pleasure designed for audiences willing to grin through the absurdity while still feeling genuine suspense.

Harrison proves herself as a capable action lead, Courtney embraces his inner predator with gusto, and Byrne directs with a mix of precision and playfulness.