DANGEROUS ANIMALS

June 6, 2025

Dangerous Animals, Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston, Sean Byrne

Words by JANE CROWTHER


Last year Cannes boasted Ozploitation The Surfer starring Nicolas Cage as a wave rider who becomes unhinged when tested by locals at an Australian surf spot. This year, the festival saw Jai Courtney get his crazy on in a similarly willfully silly but entertaining horror-actioner that features surfers in the land down under. 

Dangerous Animals, Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston, Sean Byrne
Mark Taylor/Vertigo Releasing

Premiering in Directors’ Fortnight, Sean Byrne’s video nasty stars Courtney as a salty seadog, Tucker, who trawls for female victims, not just fish, and gets off on feeding them to sharks while taping them with a camcorder. ‘So no-one knows you’re here?’ he asks a dopey backpacking couple who arrive at his Gold Coast boat looking for a day trip, and within ten minutes we’re treated to his bloody MO. Cut to feisty surfer Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) who meets-cute with a local, Moses (Josh Heuston) before taking off for some dawn tubes and falling victim to Tucker’s abduction techniques. Will the surfer outsmart the psychopath aboard his rusting ship before the great whites circle for dinner time?

Dangerous Animals, Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston, Sean Byrne
Mark Taylor/Vertigo Releasing

Courtney is clearly having great fun as a leering shark enthusiast with Mummy issues and an inexhaustible line of fishy analogies in a grindhouse-style film that has little truck with logic and a squeamish moment involving a thumb and a pair of handcuffs. Harrison makes good work of fighting for survival while maintaining perfect hair and the CG sharks chew on people inconsistently (yes to one struggling, splashing girl; no to another swimming, splashing girl).
It’s not designed to test the brain or bum, but if you like a brisk, nasty little horror that understands its genre and purpose, Dangerous Animals is decent bait.


Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs courtesy of VIRTIGO RELEASING
Dangerous Animals premiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival and is in cinemas now

TRENDING

parthenope, paolo sorrentino, celeste dalla porte, gary oldman, silvio orlando, daniele rienzo

CELESTE DALLA PORTA

Paolo Sorrentino’s latest muse burns the screen up in Parthenope. Hollywood Authentic meets the Italian actor…

black bag, cate blanchett, michael fassbender, naomi harris, pierce brosnan, steven soderberg

BLACK BAG

George and Kathryn Woodhouse ((Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett) are married British spies – intentionally…

BUY

You may also like…

anya-taylor-joy, furiosa, george miller, screening room

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

For years, George Miller’s post-apocalyptic saga has been all about Max Rockatansky. The Road Warrior – first played by Mel Gibson…

Imogen Poots, Jim Belushi, Kristen Stewart, The Chronology of Water, Thora Birch

THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER

No bodily fluid is left untouched in Kristen Stewart’s raw, unflinching poem to wetness, adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir…