A sun-soaked dream – okay, nightmare – of a midnight movie, this Australian survival horror asks the question: what if Steve Irwin was basically the devil?
The answer would probably look a lot like Jai Courtney’s shark dive owner Tucker, a brawny bogan who takes backpackers and tourists onto his rusty old boat to enthusiastically introduce them to the bull sharks, makos and great whites that swim off the Gold Coast. First in a cage, then sedated and trapped into a harness, lowered into the water while the sweaty psychopath records it all on his VHS camera. Obviously, he gives them a Vegemite sandwich and some shark facts first. He’s not a total monster.
The movie’s two heroes are American hippie-chick surfer Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) and hunky local softboi Moses (Josh Heuston). They get some cursory character details (her: estranged from parents, likes eating buns; him: sensitive rich kid, drives a Volvo; both: love Creedence Clearwater Revival), and there’s a budding romance between them that’s rendered in the cheesiest possible notes. But the two actors make them likeable enough for you to hope they don’t end up chomped on by a peckish mako.
Zephyr gets abducted during a late-night surf and wakes up chained to a bed aboard Tucker’s boat. From there, we’re off on a gnarly fun ride in the dank cabins and on bloodstained decks, as the sharks, captured in some gorgeous real-life footage, circle below. This is no Sharknado CG fest – it looks and feels real. And the boat itself is the kind of dank, unpleasant vessel you might find floating on Wolf Creek.
This gnarly fun ride will keep horror fans out of the water for years
Dangerous Animals may not be big on detailed characterisation and human psychology, but it is very big on Jai Courtney. The Australian actor can get lumbered with colourless roles but here he delivers a performance more hammy and outsized than anything else you’ll see this year. His gurning, boggle-eyed face as the resourceful Zephyr turns the tables on him is genuinely worth the admission fee alone.
One word of reservation: the scene that establishes the stakes is a tougher watch than anything in Jaws. Director Sean Byrne and screenwriter Nick Lepard are careful not to cross line that line more than once, but some will still find it off-putting and torture-porny. That said, they do a nice job of making their sharks scary without ever vilifying them, even making time to show off their grace and beauty as well as their gnashers.
It takes a steady hand to pull off a horror film as outlandish as Dangerous Animals – a movie, lest we forget, that is literally about dangerous animals – but Byrne has pulled off something slick and confident here. It’ll keep horror fans out of the water for years.
Dangerous Animals premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s in US and UK cinemas Jun 6, and Australian cinemas Jun 12.