As the runtime of Dangerous Animals (Australia and United States, 2025) progressed, it was impossible not to think about a certain viral debate from relatively recently, in which many women argued that, if they could choose, they would rather be alone in a forest with a bear than with an unknown man. The reason, in many cases, was chilling: the worst the animal could do to them was kill them.
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Change the forest for the blue seas of Australia and the bear for sharks, and the result is this film presented in the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival 2025. The remaining element in the equation, the hypothetical man, is here to demonstrate why so many women respond with complete certainty that they would prefer the bear.
What’s it about?
An American surfer and traveler, Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) has a one-night encounter with Moses (Josh Heuston), who hopes the relationship will blossom. She, however, prefers to remain alone, so she decides to head to the beach on her own in the early morning to surf. There, she is kidnapped by Tucker (Jai Courtney).
Zephyr wakes up and discovers she’s trapped aboard Tucker’s boat in the open sea. And then she witnesses this serial killer’s peculiar methods: he offers girls as shark bait and films their deaths for his video collection. Zephyr will look for a way to escape while, on land, Moses tries to locate her.
Dangerous Animals tries to be B-movie cinema with depth
The premise of this film would seem typical of a B-movie production: extravagant, unorthodox, and potentially shocking, to a degree that could easily fall into exploitation cinema territory. However, director Sean Byrne (Blood Date) keeps things relatively discreet and grounded, although there are undoubtedly some slightly chilling gore images. Nevertheless, in terms of shock levels, it conservatively fits into the canon of serial killer films, although this isn’t a negative thing given what it ultimately aims to say. Indulgence in violence would be a contradiction in itself.
Dangerous Animals is also more than just a killer shark movie—aptly, the sharks only appear in a few key scenes—. Although in terms of script and pacing it unfolds as a well-executed thriller, with its moments of dramatic tension where appropriate, these animals and the antagonist’s fascination with them can be analyzed as a critique of masculinity in its traditional form.
Essentially because Tucker refers to his victims—all of them women—first as prey (which, therefore, must be hunted); and then as objects for his entertainment, consumption, or satisfaction of his desire: as shark bait first and then as audiovisual spectacle, without being moved at all by their suffering and even delighting in it. Indeed, the worst that animals can do is kill them out of mere amoral instinct, without cruelty or pleasure.
However, Tucker’s notion of dominant and aggressive masculinity coexists with another, that of Moses, more empathetic and protective—though not developed by the script much beyond such qualifications—.
In the context of the film, it moves along a complicated line, as Zephyr suffers her fate after rejecting his romantic intentions. There’s the danger of giving a moralizing and re-victimizing reading to the sequence of events (“if she had accepted him instead of leaving, this wouldn’t have happened to her”).
The problem is that, since Dangerous Animals never delves deeper into this analysis, there isn’t much room to argue for or against such positions either. Therefore, outside of such readings, it turns out to be an entertaining thriller with a B-movie spirit with greater ambitions that don’t quite come to fruition.
Find out where Dangerous Animals is available to stream now.
