Dangerous Animals – Of Men and Fish
Dangerous Animals is pure nostalgia: for a type of popular cinema, for a time of simple stories, for a bit of innocent action flowing effortlessly across the screen. Too bad that the promise of this summery, throwback hour-and-a-half stumbles in Sean Byrne’s clumsy mise-en-scène.
Premiering in Cannes’ “Quinzaine des Cinéastes,” the film’s presence made a certain kind of sense: countering the solemnity of contemporary auteur cinema, the programmers seemed to be playing the contrarian card – a retro genre film, supposedly born from the faded spirit of proto-blockbusters and 1970s midnight movies, that wild and unapologetic territory most voices on today’s Croisette avoid. But after watching the film, it becomes clear that this aquatic horror sinks rather than swims. Not every geek raised on low-grade B- and Z-movies – cheap but imaginative, gloriously tasteless – automatically turns into Quentin Tarantino.
With its serial killer targeting foreign girls stranded on Australia’s coast, Dangerous Animals seems to aspire to the pastiche, recycling, and postmodern winks of the brilliant Death Proof (2007). It is where Tarantino proved himself a master imitator, channelling the tricks of an edgy, raunchy cinema on the fringes of New Hollywood – a world of fast girls, faster cars, and greasy thrills – while subtly marking his own difference through signature flourishes. Sean Byrne, on the other hand, lacks both the virtuosity and the distinctiveness. Aside from a few scenes of self-harm involving sharp objects, Dangerous Animals remains a rather tame affair.
There’s one towering reference looming over any shark-themed film, and its shadow still stretches so broadly across cinephilia today that it barely needs naming. In 1975, Spielberg rewrote the rules and then spent his career trying to deliver that elusive “bigger boat” one of his characters so memorably called for. But Jaws isn’t exactly the template here – it’s more like the bait. Dangerous Animals includes relatively few shark scenes, all rendered in the synthetic glow of CGI, the creatures swimming like mythical beasts through a digital sea. Despite their lack of realism, these scenes remain the film’s finest moments. At the climax, the resilient protagonist – cast into the ocean (yet again) by her tormentor – comes face to face with a Great White. The two glance at each other knowingly, as if the shark is about to whisper through its jaws: “You and I, we’re the same.” The logical conclusion might have been, in the spirit of The Songs of Maldoror, a sensual underwater union between human and fish.
But Dangerous Animals has neither humour nor transgression. The action unfolds on the boat of this maniac (played by Jai Courtney), who stages sadistic spectacles by lowering live women into shark-infested waters, then rushes to his camera to capture the carnage. Screenwriter grandiosity? A metaphor for the cinema of predatory auteurs? Either way, the whole thing feels more strange than scary, more like theatrical performance than horror vignette. The script (by Nick Lepard) can’t seem to find the right pace or rhythm, stuck between pompous monologues about the majesty of sharks delivered by this deranged Captain Ahab, chase scenes on the boat, and recurring visits to the holding cell – then back again, on repeat.
Byrne’s bag of visual tricks doesn’t help much either: Dangerous Animals is a clunky hybrid of L’Atalante (with its “poetic” underwater shots), Peeping Tom (the misogynistic snuff film as distilled artistic expression), The Deep Blue Sea, and a dozen other movies half-remembered – yet it never amounts to more than the sum of its parts.
The real problem is that the film doesn’t take any real risks. Forget the sex scene between Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) and a local corporate type (Josh Heuston), which feels like a soft-focus commercial break – all chiselled abs, warm milky light, and generic music. Are we really to believe this free-spirited van-dweller would keep herself modestly covered by a sheet even in the most intimate postcoital moments? For a film that prides itself on working in a “low-brow” register, Dangerous Animals quickly loses credibility by avoiding not just nudity but anything remotely dirty or unpredictable.
Overall, the film manages the dubious feat of never being truly disturbing. One of its “high-adrenaline” scenes involves a heated debate over the preservatives in the plain buns Zephyr devours, to the horror of the tie-wearing eco-liberal she meets roadside (he, of course, makes berry-topped pancakes instead).
It’s said that even the old studio B-movies, made fast and cheap, often carried an accidental political charge. Byrne’s film, to its credit, brushes against some current debates – even if it doesn’t follow through. The madman only targets female tourists: is he a decolonial avenger of the Down Under, or just a practical opportunist? On the flip side, the film’s feminist iconography is slightly clearer. Zephyr is a warrior ready to sacrifice herself to save her himbo companion (perhaps just so they can get married afterwards – but that’s a sequel story). At different moments, she’s Xena, the Statue of Liberty, and Lola, the avenger from Byrne’s earlier cult hit The Loved Ones (2009). She flips the power dynamic, turning the predator into a kind of Jonah swallowed by the sea’s siren (the film’s only deliberately kitsch shot), reduced to a lifeless torso that will harm no one again.
Still, the pleasures of the story are thin. Released at a major festival, Dangerous Animals set off on a false trail: there’s nothing in this film to justify such high praise, nothing that sets it apart from the rest.
Film critic and journalist; writes regularly for Dilema Veche and Scena9. Doing a MA film theory programme in Paris.
Title
Dangerous Animals
Director/ Screenwriter
Sean Byrne/Nick Lepard
Actors
Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston, Ella Newton
Country
Australia
Year
2025
Distributor
Transilvania Film
Film critic and journalist; writes regularly for Dilema Veche and Scena9. Doing a MA film theory programme in Paris.