Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals hits cinemas this week and serves as a clever reminder that humans truly are at the bottom of the food chain. Some words on shark films and why we’re so drawn to them.
Who doesn’t love a good shark film? They’re all essentially about big fish eating small humans, usually because we tend to get ourselves into situations where we are the underdog. We’re daft like that.
Steven Spielberg’s 1973 debut Jaws remains the undoubted king of the genre. The film was, of course, a major success and spawned its own set of sequels of questionable quality and some copycat movies, but the hype died down by the late 80s.
Renny Harlin brought the subgenre back with a bang with his 1999 film Deep Blue Sea. For this writer’s money, that film is unhinged perfection with its genetically modified sharks that are capable of planning their attacks and that one, spoiler-y scene with Samuel L. Jackson.
Since then, there has been a steady flow of shark films. Most of them are low-budget B-movies, but the recipe for a good shark film doesn’t require much; you have a set of expendable characters that get eaten one by one until your final girl (or boy!) outsmarts the beast or shows humility in front of nature’s most ruthless predator and is allowed to live.
Australian director Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals ambitiously aims to be both a serial killer thriller and a shark movie. It actually does a pretty good job at combining the two genres, mostly thanks to Jai Courtney’s wonderfully bonkers performance as Tucker, a murderer who feeds his prey to sharks and films the whole thing for his own pleasure.
Read more: 25 years later, Deep Blue Sea remains the best post-Jaws shark film
Dangerous Animals, like Jaws and Deep Blue Sea, argues that humanity is the real beast here. Sure, the sharks will eat humans, but we’re dumb enough to attempt to tame them or simply think we can overpower them. Spoiler alert: we never can. Tucker, Deep Blue Sea's Dr McCallister and Jaws' Mayor Vaughn represent the worst of humanity in their hubris, and are far bigger a monster than anything in the sea.
Most shark films tend to fall into the category of eco-horror. Whether the real villain is a human or an underwater beast, these films serve as a constant reminder of our place in the foodchain and how we’ve largely forgotten it.
While a lot of the shark films don’t necessarily deal with our constant abuse of the environment directly, they’re essentially about nature hitting back at us. We’ve messed with it, now it’s going to mess with us. Unfortunately, the thing that messes with us tends to be big, very big.
Jon Turteltaub knew what he was doing with The Meg; pairing Jason Statham with a giant, prehistoric shark was always likely to be a whopping good time. The titular shark escaped the deep sea thanks to humans altering the temperature of the water, making it possible for the Meg to escape and start chomping down on human flesh.
In Dangerous Animals, Tucker’s victims might be humans, but he’s also using the sharks for his own, sick gain. They’re not exactly the victims here, but they’re not entirely happy with Tucker, either, as the increasingly silly final act eventually proves.
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Even in films like The Shallows, Open Water and Something In The Water, the shark might be the threat, but they’re hardly a villain. They’re acting on instinct, doing what they’re supposed to do. Human error or bad luck is what usually leaves these characters in a situation where they’re about to be turned into the sharks’ lunch.
Shark films have perhaps never been as timely as they are now. Overfishing is threatening the world’s shark population, and apparently, they’re now also on cocaine.
Sadly, humans kill millions of sharks every year, but in 2024, only 47 people were bitten as the Natural History Museum points out. We absolutely should be respectful of sharks – or anything with such big teeth. Both in real life, and in the movies…
Dangerous Animals is in cinemas 6th June.
