Dangerous Animals (2025)

Dangerous Animals Movie Review

Bear Hands (author)

Hubby Bear

There comes a moment, every few years, when a genre thought to be artistically comatose suddenly twitches — and occasionally even sits bolt upright. Dangerous Animals, to my astonishment and delight, is one such resurrection. While the survival-horror landscape is notoriously barren of new ideas (one can only watch so many terrified twenty-somethings run from a man in a novelty mask before craving a cuppa and a lie-down), this film manages to inject a truly refreshing current into the familiar format. The premise — a shark-obsessed serial killer who employs the sharks themselves as his weapons of choice — is so audaciously specific, so magnificently unhinged, that I found myself applauding the sheer originality before a single drop of seawater hit the screen.

What makes the film truly sing, however, is its setting. Instead of yet another dark forest or abandoned Midwestern barn, Dangerous Animals plunges us into the enormous blue landscape of Oceania — a place far too sweeping and spiritual to be reduced to mere backdrop. The ocean becomes both stage and accomplice, a character as moody and unpredictable as any of its human counterparts. For someone who has always been drawn to stories from the Pacific, the film felt doubly compelling: a marriage of genre thrills and a landscape that deserves far more representation than Hollywood usually grants it.

Of course, this is still a slasher, and the expected elements of terror, chase, and desperate struggle are present and accounted for. But they’re refracted through this wonderfully eccentric premise, giving the familiar rhythm just enough syncopation to feel new again. Jai Courtney, ever the reliable screen presence, delivers exactly what one hopes from him: a performance equal parts rugged charm and grounded intensity. The film’s ensemble rises to the occasion too, treating the material with a sincerity that keeps the whole enterprise from drifting into farce — an admirable feat, given that sharks are being used as literal murder weapons.

Ultimately, Dangerous Animals succeeds not because it reinvents the survival-horror genre, but because it remembers that originality doesn’t require reinvention — just a bold enough angle. And here, the angle happens to have fins, teeth, and a handler with deeply concerning hobbies. It’s thrilling, clever, unapologetically strange, and, above all, enormous fun. For fans of slashers, oceanic settings, or the simple joy of seeing a filmmaker swing for the fences (or the reefs), it’s not to be missed.