“It’s safer in the water.” What a great tagline for this film. We have seen a barrage of shark films, all trying to take a bite out of a thirsty audience who haven’t been properly served since Jaws. Some films in the sub genre work because they don’t take themselves too seriously, like Deep Blue Sea or The Meg, so it is less about whether or not it has achieved cinematic perfection and more about having fun at the movies. But the films that try to take it seriously, and be scary, often run into the problem of feeling like we’ve been here before, because sharks seems like such an easy villain. What Dangerous Animals gets right is what very few shark films even try to do, and that is manipulate the concept, and redefine what a shark movie is.

It seems crazy to say this Shudder title, which opens on Friday in theatres, was just at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, but it was. This was right in and round all these prestige films, and why not? Director Sean Byrne has taken an original screenplay from Nick Leopard and produced something that is a shark film, but also not at the same time. If you are completely and blissfully unaware of this horror title, abandon this review now and watch this. It’s pretty good, but it is next to impossible to discuss without talking about one thing.

Jai Courtney plays Tucker, who runs a deep sea vessel that has a shark cage and allows tourists to go and swim safely with the sharks. of course, this is all a ruse, and we see in the opening sequence, Tucker has a couple on his boat, and he’s awkward, creepy, and uncomfortable to watch. Pretty quickly, he kills the boyfriend in the duo, and we cut away to check on what our leading lady is up to. Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is an American on her own in Australia. She’s not looking to hook up, she simply wants to surf. She meets a guy, Moses Josh Huston) and they hook up. It is a good thing too, because the way her life is about to have a really bad day, and Moses is like the T-1000 of one night stands. Zephyr goes back down to the coast to surf, where she runs into Tucker, and soon she becomes another one of his victims.

That’s when we see that Tucker keeps his women trapped in the under parts of his boat (you can tell, I’m a sailor), and Zephyr meets Heather (Ella Newton) who is the girl from the opening scene. They are cuffed and caged, but for what? We soon figure out Tucker isn’t a normal serial killer, he terrorizes his victims before feeding them to sharks. So, Zephyr kicks in to survival final girl mode, using all her street smarts, to try and survive. Can these girls get out? Or, has Tucker been doing this too long to be outsmarted? The one night stand, meanwhile, has decided something is amiss. Girls apparently have never vanished on him, so he’s going to start trying to find Zephyr, alerting the police, and searching for clues. He reminded me of what Lil rel Howery in Get Out, playing the best friend who is convinced something is wrong.

The movie is solid. it isn’t one of my favorite films of the year, but it certainly gets points for subverting the genre, and shooting for something different. jai Courtney, though, is maybe at his best. I have seen very few performances from him where I thought he had the stuff, as Hollywood seemed unable to ever give him a role where he wasn’t shown up by everyone in the cast. The worst career decision has to be A good Day To Die Hard, where I think they meant for him to succeed Bruce Willis, and they totally seemed to not understand what made john McLaine work. However, here, jai is not trying to be your sexy new leading man, he’s ready to be super creepy, and scare the crap out of you. He’s so effective, and his performance is the one to watch. Last week,Sally Hawkins id that in Bring Her Back, another Australian horror film, but it wasn’t quite as impressive as she has a wealth of roles already nailed. here, Courtney deserves praise for playing against type, casting aside a notion of matinee idol, and just sink his teeth into the ick.

Make sure to catch this with audio description, as there are so many unsettling visuals here that need the translation. that means, catching it in theatres or on VOD, because we all know Shudder doesn’t use their own audio description on their own service or on AMC Plus. People look for reasons to go to theatres, and the lack of accessibility on AMC Plus/Shudder, really creates a space for blind people to have to ask themselves how much they want to see IFC/Shudder films, if they have audio description. Some of the other studios send their products to streamers with accessibility, and that just isn’t the case here.

But, I never thought I would say this, jai Courtney is brilliant.

Fresh: Final Grade: B-,