{"id":12037,"date":"2025-06-07T18:35:24","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T22:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=12037"},"modified":"2025-06-21T22:52:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T02:52:52","slug":"dangerous-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/06\/07\/dangerous-animals\/","title":{"rendered":"Dangerous Animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dangerous Animals<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 IFC\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 98 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violent content, grisly images, sexuality, language, brief drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sean Byrne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Nick Lepard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Yezerski\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Shelley Farthing-Dawe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 6, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hassie Harrison, John Heuston, Jai Courtney, Rob Carlton, Ella Newton, Liam Greinke.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Anybody planning a trip to the shore this summer is well advised to avoid Dangerous Animals <\/strong>as it will make you afraid to go near the water in much the same way as Jaws did 50 years ago. Killer sharks are out there. This time, however, one of our own is helping them. You see, Dangerous Animals<\/strong> isn\u2019t just another killer shark movie. It\u2019s also a serial killer thriller featuring a psycho who treats the deadly predators like gods. He makes sacrifices to them. Great, now vacationers have two things to worry about.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Dangerous Animals<\/strong> marks a return to filmmaking for director Sean Byrne who\u2019s been on hiatus for ten years. The Aussie is best known for 2009\u2019s The Loved Ones, a wonderfully depraved teen horror movie about a girl who doesn\u2019t react well to rejection. He also made The Devil\u2019s Candy (2015) which I haven\u2019t seen. He\u2019s back now and hasn\u2019t lost a step. Dangerous Animals<\/strong> is a cool B-movie with plenty of chomp-chomp action and an unhinged killer played with relish by Jai Courtney (The Suicide Squad) in a completely bonkers performance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Byrne hits the ground running with two tourists, Greg (Greinke, Latecomers) and Heather (Newton, Girl at the Window), hiring Tucker to take them cage diving only for him to kill Greg and take Heather prisoner once they\u2019re out on the water. Then we meet Zephyr (Harrison, Yellowstone), an American drifter surfing her way around Australia. She\u2019s a loner by nature which is why she initially doesn\u2019t want to get involved with Moses (Heuston, Heartbreak High), a real estate agent who dresses like somebody from The Book of Mormon. She reluctantly agrees to help him get his car started and the next thing you know, they\u2019re getting busy in the back of her van.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Before the sun comes up the next morning, Zephyr splits to go surfing. In her words, \u201cthe early bird catches the barrel\u201d. She doesn\u2019t even make it out of the parking lot. Tucker appears, renders her unconscious and takes her. She wakes up chained to a bed next to Heather below deck on his boat. It doesn\u2019t take her long to figure out they\u2019re not his first victims. Tough girl that she is, Zephyr refuses to accept such a fate. She puts up one hell of a fight trying to escape. At the same time, Moses strikes out on his own trying to find the missing girl. Naturally, the local police don\u2019t pay too much attention to his claims of foul play. She probably just took off.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In a season traditionally filled with big-budget, CGI-heavy noisefests, it\u2019s refreshing to see something like Dangerous Animals<\/strong>. Byrne eschews all the usual bells and whistles to deliver a simple B-movie that gets by on thrills and action. It\u2019s been pared down to almost the bare minimum save for a few digitally enhanced effects. He deftly blends two genres, natural horror and serial killer thriller, to create something that might not be wholly unique but feels fresh just the same. Byrne keeps things moving swiftly although the movie could have stood one less false ending. It just feels like he\u2019s stretching things out a little too much.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Courtney is totally nutso as the killer, a man with a special affinity for sharks, the result of surviving an attack as a child. He really leans into role showing equal measures of quiet menace and psychotic glee when the sharks accept one of his sacrifices. He videotapes his victims being eaten with an ancient camcorder which lends a note of old school sensibility. It\u2019s one of many brilliant creative choices on the part of Byrne and screenwriter Nick Lepard.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Harrison, an attractive girl, is an awesome heroine. I like that Byrne takes the time to develop her character a bit before putting her in jeopardy. We learn why she prefers to do life on her own and while it\u2019s not horrifically tragic, it does explain why she can pick a lock. Life has made her strong, but not invincible. She\u2019s more than capable of taking on her captor. Harrison makes it all believable. Heuston is okay as Moses, the wannabe boyfriend who tries to be a savior in one of the movie\u2019s most thrilling sequences. I\u2019ll only say this, the little dog does NOT die.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The shark attack scenes are well done. Byrne wisely goes with practical effects for the makeup and gore. He keeps the CGI to a minimum, especially where the sharks are concerned. He uses both real ones and mechanical ones. As to the latter, we\u2019ve come a long way since the days of Jaws 3D. They never look fake.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Movies like Dangerous Animals<\/strong> are the reason why I love what I do. It\u2019s still fun sitting in a dark theater on a summer\u2019s day (or night) watching silly movies involving killer sharks or whatever. It doesn\u2019t have to be realistic. In fact, I\u2019d rather it wasn\u2019t. I want to be entertained and that means taking a short leave from reality. I welcome films about killer sharks and serial killers working together (so to speak). Dangerous Animals<\/strong>, filmed on Australia\u2019s Gold Coast (looking beautiful, btw), is great fun. Being reminded of the dangers that lurk in and out of the ocean is a nice way to kick off summer vacation, don\u2019t you think?\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dangerous Animals (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 IFC\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 98 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violent content, grisly images, sexuality, language, brief drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sean Byrne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Nick Lepard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Yezerski\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Shelley Farthing-Dawe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 6, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hassie Harrison, John Heuston, Jai Courtney, Rob Carlton, Ella Newton, Liam Greinke. Rating: *** \u00a0Anybody planning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Dangerous-Animals-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12037"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12047,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12037\/revisions\/12047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}