Still, a good serial killer alone isn’t enough for a horror film. A strong antagonist is just as essential. In Dangerous Animals, we get a true final girl as our protagonist. Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is a surfer with a rough past who refuses to play by “the system rules.” She lives a nomadic life, has her van as her home, and travels the coast chasing the perfect wave. On one of these trips, she meets the suspiciously handsome Moses (Josh Heuston), who turns out to be not only a good man, but her opposite in many ways. They hit it off and spend the night together, but not used to Moses’s fancy lifestyle, Zephyr sneaks out before dawn (apparently no one’s afraid of anything in Australia), and crosses paths with Bruce, kicking off her own personal hell and a tense, action-packed survival nightmare.

Set against a paradisiacal backdrop, Deadly Animals creates a deeply unsettling atmosphere, largely thanks to Tucker and Jai Courtney’s chilling performance. With Nick Lepard’s screenplay and Sean Byrne’s sharp direction, Tucker becomes a well-crafted, believable killer. He mentions a childhood trauma – being attacked by a shark and surviving – which became a defining moment, making him view sharks as divine creatures. There’s a certain madness to Tucker, which Courtney captures brilliantly, yet he still manages to appear just “normal” enough for tourists to feel safe stepping alone onto his boat. The way Tucker kills is even more intriguing: he always takes two victims, sending one into the water to be attacked by sharks while forcing the other to watch. There’s an eerie theatricality to Tucker’s performance, he even records each of his torture sessions.

Tucker’s mistake is choosing Zephyr as one of his victims. She’s a born survivor who simply refuses to bow to him. This sets up a gripping showdown where they both dish out and take brutal hits, though Zephyr certainly suffers far more. The tension escalates when Moses, despite her trying to keep her distance out of fear of emotional attachment, becomes the hopeless romantic who risks his life to find her once he realizes she’s missing. While a touch of romance can be welcome, their relationship ends up leaning on familiar clichés that slow the narrative down. It’s not that Dangerous Animals is too serious to handle romance – it’s very aware it shouldn’t take itself too seriously (yes, “Baby Shark” is mentioned more than once) – but toning down the sentimentality between Zephyr and Moses, especially towards the end, might have kept the film’s tone slightly darker and more cohesive.

Flaws aside, Deadly Animals is still a thrilling survival horror, with sharp direction that makes the most of its action scenes and its sharks, massive, terrifying, untamed yet as realistic as possible, and a storyline that truly entertains.