From the land down under, on the sun-soaked Gold Coast of Queensland, comes the indie horror-thriller Dangerous Animals (2025). It stars Jai Courtney as a serial killer cruising the shark-infested seas, but it leaves most of the terror lingering on deck.
Welcome Aboard Tucker's Experience: Is This Wolf Creek on the Open Sea?
Courtney portrays Bruce Tucker, a seasoned Australian tour guide who makes his living leading adrenaline-pumping adventure tours for eager tourists seeking the thrill of swimming with sharks. He operates a tour boat equipped with one of those reinforced shark cages that allows guests to safely submerge and encounter sharks and other predators up close. Using a winch system mounted on the vessel’s deck, he lowers the cage into the ocean’s depths, seemingly ready to turn adventure into nightmare, or so we were hoping, but it ends up being more like just dipping your toes in the water.
The whole concept of swimming with sharks seems sheer lunacy, and it feels even more so when our opening couple put their trust in Tucker whose boat proudly bears the words 'Tucker's Experience' across its hull, as he sinisterly jokes to them "that nobody even knows you're here" after they casually mention their last-minute plans for the cage dive.
It somewhat channels Wolf Creek terror onto the open sea; admittedly, our own somewhat limited knowledge of Australian horror mostly begins and ends with John Jarrat's Mick Taylor. Tucker is more of a salty shadow, though he shares the similarities of the classic bipolar jovial banter that's capable of flipping in an instant.
Courtney’s portrayal of a crazed serial killer, complete with a clunky VHS camcorder and glaring spotlights, looms large. But unlike Wolf Creek, without the sprawling outback to amplify his mystique, his cold-blooded predator act feels like a script on fast-forward, effective at times yet ultimately underutilized, with a script that fails to pull any rabbits out of the hat.
From Hookups and Surfer Dreams to Scarce Budget Bin Sharks
Tucker's adversary in the movie, Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), a spirited American surfer lured to the Gold Coast’s legendary waves with dreams of freedom and excitement. Her carefree life takes a dark turn after bailing early on a one-night stand with Moses (Josh Heuston) and crossing paths with Tucker. Her sudden absence and disappearance leave Moses in a desperate scramble to piece together clues and find her before it’s too late.
We’re careful about labeling Dangerous Animals a true “shark flick,” as those anticipating gritty, blood-soaked shark mayhem will be left wanting. The movie’s shark sequences deliver only a few scarce frenzies with CGI add-ons that feel far from satisfying, offering nowhere near enough chomping action or thrashing fins beneath the surface to deliver what viewers came for.
Instead, the modest budget and production squeeze shift most of the action to the deck, where Tucker faces off with his victims. The movie could have used some fine-tuning, but it still churns out enough action to keep us afloat, even if we’re not fully enthralled and left largely disappointed that we didn’t get a proper shark experience.
