Spoiler-Free Review: Dangerous Animals (2025)

You have to appreciate a serial killer who doesn’t do the actual killing. Especially one who opts to outsource the final rites of a victim to a shark rather than another human being. In Dangerous Animals, Jai Courtney’s Tucker does exactly that, having developed an unusual pathology after a childhood shark attack left him scarred.

If all goes to plan, his next victim will be a nomadic surfer, Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), an American who’s drifted away from home and found herself Down Under. Before her encounter with Tucker, however, she has a one-night stand with Josh Heuston’s real estate agent, Moses. It’s a one-night stand with serious sparks, so Moses doesn’t abandon the possibility of a second night or more when Zephyr pulls a vanishing act, figuring out that something must be wrong despite her skittish ways.

Dangerous Animals is best described as a genre mashup, not entirely a serial killer movie or a shark movie. Doug Jamieson of The Jam Report likened it to a “B-movie shocker wrapped in A24 gloss,” which feels about right. The film is distributed by Shudder in the United States, and its catalog usually tends to be a cut below that of A24. Personally, however, I…