Now this is a shark movie made for the 2020s.
Since I’ve skipped the “Sharknado” and “Meg” movies, I’ve said the following statements for the most recent shark movies. For “No Way Up,” which was about a plane crash that crash-lands and sinks in the Atlantic Ocean with sharks attacking people, I’ve said: “Sharks on a Plane? Me No Think So.” And for “Into the Deep,” which had Richard Dreyfus playing another marine biologist, but a boring one, I’ve said: “This isn’t how you celebrate “Jaws'” 50th anniversary.”
And now that we have “Dangerous Animals,” I think it’s safe to go back to the theater. It’s basically splice between “Silence of the Lambs” and “Jaws,” and it also works as a B picture with better intentions than what was presented of late. It’s just as thrilling as the posters and trailers presented them, and it makes me glad I didn’t waste my life on the bad shark films I’ve skipped.
We meet Zephyr (Hassi Harrison from “Yellowstone”), a young American surfer, who lives in and drives a van in Australia, while looking for the perfect wave and escaping from her difficult life. She has a little romance with the native Moses (Josh Heuston), who would like to join her on a surfing adventure. Unfortunately, plans change, when she ends up getting abducted by a serial killer named Tucker (Jai Courtney). He poses as a shark tour guide, who would chain his victims below deck, and use a VHS camcorder to film their gruesome deaths. This would be shark torture porn.
I would have loved to get to know more about the girl’s back story in flashbacks, instead of only relying on escape attempt scenes to try to make the film longer. It runs for about 90 minutes, and so you can easily tell the girl isn’t going to escape from the killer’s clutches just yet. But “Dangerous Animals,” directed by Sean Byrne (“The Loved Ones,” “The Devil’s Candy”), delivers in a number of ways, ones that question the humanity inside people and sharks. Man is considered to be the most dangerous animal, while sharks are beneficial to our ecosystem, so it all connects well.
The main heroine/victim is full of versatility and smart dialogue, unlike Bill Skarsgard character in “Locked.” Yes, she does give the villain some FUs, but she doesn’t indulge herself in them, and has patience within herself. Harrison delivers with the kind of consistency that Blake Lively displayed less than a decade ago in the shark thriller “The Shallows.” In fact, I think these two should have a meet up, but I don’t want to give out any movie ideas. After all this movie is released by IFC Films’ new name Independent Film Company.
Courtney probably gives his best performance as a killer who believes in the power of nature and how charismatic he can be towards his customers-soon-to-be-victims. I like how when the girl throws his camera in the water, he has to go to a flea market to find another one, and he has a bad attitude about it. And I like how he dances to Stevie Wright’s “Evie (Part One)” after murdering someone, like he really takes great pleasure in all this.
It’s impossible to find a shark movie to top “Jaws,” because that is the best shark movie of all time. But “Dangerous Animals” comes at a great year, and it doesn’t try too hard to top that film. It plays it at is own pace, and it acknowledges both creatures. About the B movie genre, I don’t want to spoil much but Zephyr has to injure herself in order to try to escape. I’m surprised the sharks didn’t catch the scent of her bloody injuries. Maybe the movie doesn’t want to think like that.
