Rating: R | Runtime: 98 minutes
Release Date: June 6th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Independent Film Company / Shudder
Director(s): Sean Byrne
Writer(s): Nick Lepard

God’s down there.

Bruce Tucker (Jai Courtney) is a miracle. The boy who survived a shark attack with all his limbs intact. So, it’s not far-fetched that he’d grow into a devotee of the cartilaginous fish that spared his life. Or that he would view these creatures as Gods as a result. Tucker worships them so much that he’s dedicated his life to changing the narrative via a cage experience tourists can use to witness their splendor. He’ll toss facts about mosquitoes being more deadly to humans and monologue about our gut instinct allowing fear to wrongly position the shark as our predator. The “Tucker Experience” is akin to exposure therapy. He’s a disciple converting his new flock.

Except, as Dangerous Animals screenwriter Nick Lepard and director Sean Byrne soon reveal, Tucker isn’t some eccentric marine preacher. No, he’s a serial killer who fancies himself a land shark due to the beasts letting him go that day. He does give paying customers a good show and proselytizes his “faith,” but it’s all a front to acquire new victims. They aren’t just for him, though—despite his delight in the process and collection of VHS trophies to rewatch over dinner. They are also for his God. Sacrifices upon an altar of water. Gifts for a species that lets the world go round through its job as sea policemen ensuring the weak won’t run amok. Tucker is a man with a higher purpose than mere murder. He’s a prophet.

It’s a fascinating bit of backstory for a character Courtney sinks his own teeth into en route to captivating audiences with a comically smarmy good time. His corny nature when selling customers on the ride (and calming them down with humorous distractions) helps us buy his otherwise steely-eyed determination to hunt prey as though recruiting talent for this very horror film we’ve chosen to watch. There’s no fourth wall breaking, but Tucker definitely fancies himself an artist capturing a Barnum & Bailey type show regardless of its ability to only entertain himself. He revels in the chase. Goads his Gods into making the kill as bloody as possible. And encourages the fight some of the women he kidnaps put up to increase his own excitement.

Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is one such fighter—a woman Tucker sees himself in despite never pivoting to turn her into an acolyte. A solitary soul in Australia to escape her past and catch some waves, she’s the perfect mark because no one would miss her enough to come looking if she disappeared. Tucker surely sees that as a sign. That she was brought by providence to serve her purpose within his warped circle of life. And everything would have gone as usual if not for Lepard and Byrne needing an external force to help even the narrative scales. You see, timing is everything. If Tucker snatched Zephyr up a day earlier, she never would have met Moses (Josh Heuston) and ensnared his heart. She may be a loner, but she’s no longer alone.

Add another potential victim (Ella Newton’s Heather) to prolong the inevitable moment when Zephyr finally gets her chance at the end of Tucker’s hook and Dangerous Animals proves ready to deliver all the pieces that make up a solid horror thriller. Graphic deaths. Unforgettable villain. Headstrong hero. And the power of love to wake said hero up to the reality that having something (or someone) to fight for makes you push further than you ever could for yourself. What helps the film stand apart, though, is that the same sentiments are true for the villain. If Tucker were simply killing for pleasure, he might be more careful. But he’s doing this for the sharks. It’s ritualistic. Knowing they “need” him to follow through drives him to risk his own safety for their satisfaction.

So, while the film doesn’t deliver much that other captivity horror hasn’t already supplied, the characters possess the goods to make us forget each new plot progression is a familiar check stop upon a well-worn trope. The prologue will have a body count. The hero will try and escape the emotional connection she needs to survive. The killer will get too comfortable hearing himself talk and ultimately provide the cracks in the façade that provide her a slim chance of escape. And the surefire mode of death will have a single (albeit unlikely without some luck) flaw exposed to keep the game moving longer than the premise probably deserves. But Courtney and Harrison are too much fun to care.

At one point I even thought the filmmakers found the guts to subvert expectations and let more blood flow by slamming shut the doors so many of its ilk open for the precise purpose of saving the day, but Lepard and Byrne simply enjoy toying with us as much as the characters. It does eventually render the tension moot (our own bloodlust stops caring about who lives because we just want to see someone die) while also leaving a ton of loose salvation threads never to be pulled, but the entertainment value remains. It leans too hard into its rote Hollywood finale as a result of leaving those darker and more interesting possibilities solely in my head, but that’s today’s industry. We can have our derangement, but not enough to ruin any love conquers all mandates.

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Hassie Harrison and Jai Courtney in Sean Byrne’s DANGEROUS ANIMALS. Courtesy of Independent Film Company and Shudder. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release.