Off the Gold Coast in Australia, weirdo sea captain Tucker (Jai Courtney) operates a shark cage diving experience for tourists, taking them into the middle of nowhere in the ocean and chumming the water to attract any of the area's numerous varieties of man-eating sharks. Tucker also happens to be an unhinged serial killer who has murdered dozens of innocent tourist who come for the shark diving thrill, trussing them up and dangling them over the side of his boat like they were bait (which, let's face it, they are), chronicling their terrified, agonized screams on videotape as the carnivorous fish eat them alive. American surfer Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) has come to Australia to escape her hard previous existence, hooking up with nice guy real estate agent Moses (Josh Heuston) and forming a connection, but her deep mistrust of people after years in foster homes and juvie lead her to leave in the wee hours after their tryst, and she goes to a remote beach to surf alone in the night. There she falls prey to Tucker, and from that point onward she must use every bit of her hard-earned toughness and survival skills to try and make it out alive. Good luck with that, as Tucker has his twisted serial killer methodology down pat, and his sadistic operations are conducted on the high seas, where no one is watching...
Forced to witness a fellow prisoner's agonized consumption by sharks.Making a decent shark movie in the wake of the genre-defining JAWS (1975), even fifty years later, is a daunting task, and only a few films in the sub-genre have managed to pull it off. DANGEROUS ANIMALS is one of the better of this breed, featuring solid performances, a tense vibe, a tough as nails protagonist in Zephyr, and a vile killer in the hulking Tucker. He equates himself with sharks, takes locks of hair from his victims and makes deep-sea fishing lure with them, souvenirs that he preserves in the cases of the library of his videotaped murders, and he nonchalantly eats meals while watching the video evidence, which he considers "the greatest show on earth." He's a vile piece of work who one can't wait to see get his just desserts.
DANGEROUS ANIMALS is not a classic, but it is very entertaining, and you really feel for Tucker's innocent victims. I I were to describe this film to knowledgeable horror fans in one sentence, I would simply say "PEEPING TOM meets JAWS." If you get that gene-spliced reference, you get what DANGEROUS ANIMALS is, so proceed from there. It's a fun way to spend 98 minutes, though I. could have done with more graphic depictions of sharks eating people. What we get is pretty good, but when it comes to man-versus-man-eaters stories, I prefer things as visceral and nasty as possible. DANGEROUS ANIMALS earns its R-rating mostly for profanity, though there's a good deal of nastiness that killed any possibility of a PG-13, which is fine by me. Give me R-rated horror and beyond, not watered-down pablum that brings in the lucrative younger audience. I want my horror with teeth, goddammit, and a proper shark film must possess said dental appendages. That said, DANGEROUS ANIMALS joins my short list of quality shark flicks, a roster that includes JAWS, DEEP BLUE SEA, and the superlative THE SHALLOWS.
No comments:
Post a Comment