Dangerous Animals (2025) Dir: Sean Byrne
- Ridley Coote
- Mar 27
- 2 min read
Instagram post:
Of the many films that I enviably did not have time to see at the cinema this year, this shark-related horror, directed by Sean Byrne, was one of the ones that I was most intrigued by. The notion of a shark-based horror film sounded very exciting to me, and, if done right, it could have been a scintillating and frightening thriller, but, unfortunately, as I would come to find out, this was all a bit of a mess.
Starting more positively, I actually thought the film looked fairly good. The shots involving the sharks were very mixed in quality. I thought those made to appear like faux-camera footage looked pretty good, but the rest of the shots were fairly disappointing. The Australian setting looked great, of course - shooting where the film was set was a smart and easy decision, although I do believe that the film could have utilised it better.
The story was, sadly, where this film fell apart completely. What began with promise, soon revealed itself to be a boring, nonsensical, and incredibly poorly written film. What could have been a genuinely thrilling and unique serial killer horror, ended up being a real letdown, and one of the more forgettable films I've seen this year. The characters were all shallow, the story was all over the place, and, quite frankly, the only thing this film succeeded in doing was making me realise how much better it could have been.
The leading performance of Hassie Harrison was adequate, but unimpressive, verging on mediocre occasionally. I wanted to like her, but the irritatingly basic and sloppy nature of her character's writing made that a near impossible task. Even so, she could have done more to make her character feel like a likable survivor and protagonist.
The same criticisms could be laid at the feet of Jai Courtney's antagonist. He just wasn't interesting, and ultimately felt like a weak and bland rendition of so many other serial killer characters. Josh Heuston also did not particularly impress, giving a mediocre performance, which really did not show his best talents. He never felt like he believed what he was saying or doing, which took away from my ability to believe in him as a character, rather than an actor.
Overall, I thought this film was massively disappointing, considering how good, or at least interesting, it could have been. The film could have at least given its audience a compelling and memorable killer, but what we got instead was a dull, unremarkable, and even a little cringe, villain, who was painfully easy to forget, much like the rest of the film, in fact. This was a waste of an intriguing premise, unfortunately, and not one that I particularly care to watch again.
Comments