‘Dangerous Animals’ Director Sean Byrne Used Real Sharks and Praises Jai Courtney’s Serial Killer Turn [Exclusive]

In a crowded sea of horror this summer season, Dangerous Animals stands apart. Not just for its originality but for the way it upends a summer genre staple: shark horror.

Dangerous Animals swims into theaters on June 6, 2025, and stars Hassie Harrison (“Yellowstone”), Josh Heuston (“Heartbreak High”), and Jai Courtney (The Suicide Squad) as the unsettling killer featured in our exclusive image (above). 

The Loved Ones and The Devil’s Candy director Sean Byrne and screenwriter Nick Lepard blend the shark movie with serial killer thriller to exhilarating results, with Byrne injecting his style of intense horror to keep audiences on the edge of their seats. Nerve-fraying horror aside, it’s the type of bold reinvention that’s long overdue in this particularly crowded subgenre.

It’s man who’s the most dangerous one here. Dangerous Animals may feature cinema’s favorite aquatic predator, but they’re merely animals being used as weapons in a sadistic killer’s game. That Lepard’s script presented the long-misunderstood sharks as they truly are was a large part of the appeal for Byrne. “What felt fresh about it is exactly what you’re talking about,” the director tells BD. “The shark isn’t the indiscriminate killer. I think, in a way, as incredible as Jaws is, it kind of did a disservice to the shark. Ever since that film, everyone thinks that they’re just going to attack you, which isn’t true at all. Pretty much every film after Jaws just took that lead. We wanted to correct that misconception that, yes, it can happen. But in Dangerous Animals, the sharks only turn up if the waters are chummed.

Byrne continues, “This is actually a real problem with shark cage diving at the moment where, even though it’s illegal, it’s a competitive business. If you chum the waters, their customers will actually get to see sharks, but now sharks associate boats with food. But yet, they’re not turning up trying to hurt us. Sharks kill less than 10 people per year, and usually, it’s in a case of mistaken identity. Sorry, this is a long-winded way of answering it. But Nick’s wife, I think, is a marine biologist. They really wanted to correct that misconception and have sort of a shark conservation element that this is not what sharks do. Man is the true monster, and even the shark mayhem in the film is by the hand of man.”

Approaching the shark with respect and authenticity means that Dangerous Animals features a wide variety of species. It also means using real sharks on screen.

“There are makos in there, bull sharks, tiger sharks, and the gray nurse as well. They’re all real sharks. Anytime you go underwater, it’s a real shark.” Byrne reveals. “Sometimes, we had to roto reel sharks and put them in the water that we created. But the majority of the time, we’re actually using 4K footage of the water that the real sharks are in. We’re blending that with the real footage and making sure that the water matches in the grade. The only CG is the fins, which, originally, was going to be real footage as well.

“What I wanted to do was use a variety of sharks, but also the imperfections that sharks have. Whether it’s from mating, or whether it’s being hunted by humans, they have scars. As humans, it’s our imperfections that make us us and give us our personality. I feel like you never see that in shark films. They’re always just perfectly smooth and sleek. I wanted sharks that had gum disease and things like that. I want it to feel like it has a documentary truth, but then you’re transferring that into a sleek summer movie with a capital M. I hadn’t really seen that combination before.”

While Dangerous Animals aims to correct decades of films presenting sharks in an almost supernaturally aggressive light, that doesn’t mean its lacking in grisly imagery or gory violence that’ll leave you squirming. It also features on bravura performance by Jai Courtney as the charismatic yet unsettling killer, Tucker. The film’s director agrees with this writer: you’ve never seen a performance like this from the actor before. 

“That’s how the spider catches the fly,” Byrne affirms of Tucker’s disarming qualities. “He’s got to be charismatic to get people on the boat, but then equally terrifying. But yet, still somehow capture the damaged child inside, and Jai and I spoke a lot about just the opportunity within horror. Villains can just own the stage in a way. The way that Kathy Bates does in Misery, Christian Bale in American Psycho, and Jack Nicholson in The Shining, and really having fun. But it also has got to be a nuanced performance. I’d always been a fan of Jai’s, and just a really solid actor. I had this feeling that there was this weird character actor inside him that wanted to explode, and I think it’s my favorite performance of his. I mean, I’m biased, but I really feel like it’s one of those iconic villains. And in a way, he does see himself as the shark.

“He fully got inside that. He fully got in the head of all of that psychologically. But to do that and not destroy the fun of it. He’s physically very intimidating as well. In a way, I felt like I was working with Mike Tyson or something. He’s this massive unit. I couldn’t even get my arms around him, but he’s just so strong, too.”

Get ready to fall for one of the year’s best horror films when Dangerous Animals arrives this June.

Read Bloody Disgusting’s full Summer Preview now!

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