Dangerous Animals is a film that combines the sharksploitation sub-genre with a serial killer thiller, while in a new interview, director Sean Byrne says it’s also been made as a direct response to Jaws.
Horror movie Dangerous Animals stars Jai Courtney as Tucker, a psychopath who murders his victims by taking them out to sea off Australia’s Gold Coast, then feeding them to sharks.
We loved the film, awarding it 4-stars, and writing in our Dangerous Animals review that the movie delivers “thrills, laughs, and above all, scares.”
But while the killer in question loves the sound of his own voice, he also talks a lot of sense when it comes to conservation. That’s an issue which is close to director Sean Byrne’s heart, and why much of the movie is a response to how sharks have traditionally been portrayed on film.
The Discovery Channel became a “guiding light”
Dangerous Animals features all types of sharks, from Makos and Tiger sharks, to Great Whites and Bull sharks. And Byrne says he wanted to get them right onscreen.
“I was pretty exhausted by the way sharks are depicted in so many shark films,” Byrne explains to Dexerto. “Where they’re just these sleek, perfect creatures, with almost animated human expressions when they’re about to go in for the kill.
“We wanted to get away from all that, and treat sharks the same way that The Discovery Channel treats them. That became a guiding light to how sharks are integrated into the film.”
Dangerous Animals vs Jaws
Byrne continues: “Nick [Lepard] the writer had done his research and his wife’s a marine biologist, so that was one of the main reasons the script was created. To correct this misconception that was perpetuated by Jaws that sharks are just these indiscriminate killers.
“Even when they show up in Dangerous Animals, it’s because they were manipulated by man, so when Tucker does talk about sharks associating boats with food, this is something that’s actually happening in the cage-diving industry at the moment, because you want to ensure that sharks appear, but then the more that you throw chum in, the more they associate boats with food, and the more accidents happen.
“He talks about when sharks kill, it’s typically an accident, and them mistaking us for a seal. So there’s a shark conservation element that runs through the film. He’s not a particularly nice guy, but a lot of what he’s talking about in a shark conservation sense is true.”
Dangerous Animals hits US and UK screens on June 6, 2025. For more scary stuff, check out our list of the best horror movies of all-time, as well as our picks for scariest TV shows ever.
Source link
