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Bambi and Pete Davidson are featured in this week’s new horror movies, but unfortunately they’re not sharing the screen in the same movie. They’re joined by the at-home release of one of this year’s best horror movies so far, along with a new Gill Man movie from Shudder.

Here’s all the new horror that released from July 21 – July 27, 2025!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

There’s a monster in the basement in Bait, now available on VOD.

In the new indie monster movie from Uncork’d Entertainment, “On their way to a family get-together, the Herring family are in a bad car accident, waking in a terrifying, dark basement. Something is there with them. And it craves human flesh.”

Bait was directed by Andrea M. Catinella, written by Sam Gurney.

The cast includes Ingrid Evans, Connor Powles, Andrew Rolfe, and Natalie Hughes.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

The Assessment (Fleur Fortune)

The “old world” is a wasteland. People still live there, but not for very long. Those in the “new world” live hundreds of years thanks to a drug that slows aging. It’s groundbreaking technology that comes at a price: the combination of scarce real estate on which to live safely and figurative immortality means less to go around for a populace that never decreases. The compromise was thus to take China’s now-defunct “one-child policy” to the nth degree and render the conception of all children illegal. Unless you’re granted a waiver by the government, but that permission is understandably not easily won. You must prove yourselves worthy as a couple via a seven-day evaluation. This...

This week’s streaming premieres are a healthy mix of both movies and TV shows. Three films that were released in theaters earlier this year have made their streaming and on-demand debuts this week. Netflix and Paramount+, meanwhile, have added new episodes of two wildly different, popular shows to their platform. On Friday, Netflix is also set to host the premiere of one of this summer’s biggest and most star-studded sequels.

Here are the eight best new movies and shows that you can stream this weekend.

“Dangerous Animals” (Shudder) “Dangerous Animals” (2025)

A savage mash-up of the serial killer and shark survival horror genres, director Sean Byrne’s “Dangerous Animals” is unlike any other thriller you will likely see this year. An Australian and American co-production, it follows a free-spirited surfer (Hassie Harrison) who is abducted by a maniacal serial killer (Jai Courtney) who ritualistically holds his victims captive on...

Creature features continue to be a dominant subgenre when it comes to horror. The fear and the terror that an often unknown vicious entity can introduce continues to run our imaginations wild. The 50th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws reminds us of the tremendous impact the subgenre has had through generations. And of course, the recent craze over Jurassic World Rebirth further reinforces that the audience still craves a good old creature horror! In recent years, the concept of the antagonist has been put to the test. Can a creature be truly evil, or are they simply misunderstood—is a prominent question that some filmmakers have dared to tackle. For example, in Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals, the antagonist is not really the creature, aka sharks, but a psychopath. Mike Wiluan’s Monster Island takes a similar route. Yes, there is a monster involved, but is it really villainous?...

Discovery’s annual “Shark Week” is now officially underway, and the horror genre is getting in on the feeding frenzy with the at-home premiere of Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals today.

One of Bloody Disgusting’s 10 best horror movies released in the first half of 2025, Dangerous Animals is now available for Digital purchase for $24.99 or at-home rental for $19.99.

It’s the only new shark attack movie that’s actually being released during “Shark Week” this year, but many more shark-themed horror movies are swimming our way very soon.

Here are 10 upcoming shark horror movies to keep an eye out for!

Deep Water

Renny Harlin (Deep Blue Sea) returns to shark infested waters with Deep Water, an action thriller that will receive a wide theatrical release later this year from Magenta Light Studios.

The film follows an eclectic group of international passengers whose plane, en route from L.A. to Shanghai,...

Collider Ladies Night hit a milestone last year at San Diego Comic-Con. We did our very first live edition of the show with Melissa Barrera, Erika Henningsen, and Katy O’Brian in a packed house in one of the biggest rooms of the convention, Ballroom 20. We’re beyond thrilled to announce that Ladies Night is coming back for more in 2025.

In partnership with IFC Entertainment Group, Collider Ladies Night returns to San Diego Comic-Con, but with a spin. This year, we're hosting Collider Ladies Night After Dark and putting the spotlight on the women of the IFC Entertainment Group – encompassing the brands of The Independent Film Company, Shudder and Rlje. Those women? Clown in a Cornfield star Katie Douglas, Hassie Harrison from Dangerous Animals, Whistle headliners Dafne Keen and Sophie Nélisse, and Alexandra Shipp who’ll be promoting both Forbidden Fruits and Violent Ends.

If you’re looking for unparalleled insight into Douglas,...

Editor’s note: The promise and peril of artificial intelligence has captivated Washington D.C., Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Hollywood. Composer Michael Yezerski has taken a hands-on approach to it: The author of the score of the likes of the Oscar-winning short The Last Thing, Blindspotting (the movie and the series), Sean Byrne’s The Devil’s Candy, this year’s Dangerous Animals and the just released Liam Neeson-starring Ice Road: Vengeance put the tech to the test, as he details in a guest column for Deadline.

The other week at a party, I was asked by a picture editor if I am feeling the threat of AI.

I honestly replied that I am not. But then he told me that he uses AI music generators in his everyday work as a picture editor for commercials and all of a sudden, I felt threatened. I found the conversation sobering,...

A Shark-Obsessed Psychopath That Tortures His Victims Physically And Mentally Believe it or not, Sean Byrne’s ‘Dangerous Animals’ is the second film set in Australia to be released in the last two months that follows an American in the foreign land, with the Nicolas Cage led ‘The Surfer’ being the other. Both films follow their lead characters who find themselves to be in danger from a local that absolutely despises tourism, and if they were made just to keep Americans like myself out of their proud country, then it is absolutely working. Things to do: Subscribe to The Hollywood Insider’s YouTube Channel, by clicking here. Limited Time Offer – Free Subscription to The Hollywood Insider Click here to read more on The Hollywood Insider’s vision, values and mission statement here – Media has the responsibility to better our world – The Hollywood Insider fully focuses on substance and meaningful entertainment,...

Two years ago this month, while the industry was in the thick of the dual writers and actors strikes, Range Media Partners and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Fred Berger, principles of the busy production banner Automatik, decided to tie the knot. In 2024, the fledgling film and production division of Range Studios enjoyed a banner year by any measure.

Searchlight Pictures’ “A Complete Unknown” scored at the mainstream box office ($140 million worldwide) and had a strong award season ride capped by eight Oscar nominations.

Meanwhile, Neon’s “Longlegs” proved that there’s still plenty of box office gold to be mined from distinctive indie films. The horror film that finished out with $127 million in worldwide box office ($74 million domestic) also vaulted the director Osgood Perkins to a new level of industry recognition. Having that kind of career-building relationship with filmmakers is important to Kavanaugh-Jones and Berger, regardless of whether the talent is...

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Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" is one of the most commercially successful, critically beloved, and important blockbuster movies ever made. Full stop. It just turned 50 this week, and few movies that are five decades old look quite as fresh to modern audiences as this masterful, terrifying depiction of man vs. nature. Put simply, it's the best shark movie ever made -- and it's not even close.

Me saying that "Jaws" is the greatest shark movie to ever grace the silver screen is far from original, it's pretty much accepted as fact (or as close as one gets to fact when expressing a critical opinion). That being the case, it's not surprising that we've had many shark movies over the years that have tried to mimic the success of Spielberg's 1975 cinematic classic. Some have been sort of successful (like "Great White...

The 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) will feature key Cannes Film Festival winners in its Horizons section and a selection of action and horror movies, both new and older, for its revamped Midnight Screenings program under the new name “Afterhours.”

In a lineup update unveiled on Friday, Kviff said it will this year screen more than 130 feature films in the picturesque Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary.

The Horizons lineup, which traditionally features highlights from the festival circuit of the past year, includes the likes of Jay Duplass’ The Baltimorons, Tom Shoval’s A Letter to David, Michel Franco’s Dreams, My Father’s Shadow by Akinola Davies Jr., Mary Bronstein‘s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day, Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Prosecutors, Jafar Panahi‘s Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, and fellow Cannes...

Ethan Embry, the actor famous for his roles in 1990s films like Can't Hardly Wait and White Squall, is set to make his debut in the Scream franchise in 2026. Embry will have a supporting role in Scream 7, the Kevin Williamson sequel that will essentially reboot the series created by Wes Craven in 1996. The actor recently revealed that he'd been seeking a part in the beloved horror franchise since its beginning, but after he auditioned for Craven, the feedback was not the best.

Embry told the anecdote in an exclusive video for Bloody Disgusting posted on their Instagram account. The actor showed his gratitude for the opportunity to join the iconic horror series, and recalled his failed audition to join the classic cast in 1996 during the peak of his career. Those looking for Scream 7 spoilers should know that he revealed nothing about the film:

"The one thing that I...

Here’s the latest episode of The Filmmakers Podcast, part of the podcast roster here on Nerdly. If you haven’t heard the show yet, you can check out previous episodes on the official podcast site, whilst we’ll be featuring each and every new episode as it premieres.

For those unfamiliar with the series, The Filmmakers Podcast is a podcast about how to make films from micro-budget indie films to bigger-budget studio films and everything in between. Our hosts Giles Alderson, Dom Lenoir, Dan Richardson, Andrew Rodger and Cristian James talk about how to get films made, how to actually make them and how to try not to f… it up in their very humble opinion. Guests will come on and chat about their filmmaking experiences from directors, writers, producers and screenwriters, to actors, cinematographers and distributors.

The Filmmaker’s Podcast #456: Jai Courtney and Sean Byrne talk making indie feature Dangerous Animals,...

Dangerous Animals is out now. In it, Jai Courtney plays a maniacal serial killer with a unique method of dispatching his victims: feeding them alive to hungry sharks. Directed by Sean Byrne, the thriller breathes new life into the tired shark subgenre of horror, just in time for Jaws‘ 50th anniversary. I had the chance to speak with Jai Courtney about what it was like getting into the mind of a killer for his role as Tucker in Dangerous Animals.

Check out my review of Dangerous Animals here.

Jai Courtney: Dangerous Animals interview Jai Courtney towers as Tucker in ‘Dangerous Animals’ Hassie Harrison stars alongside Jai Courtney in ‘Dangerous Animals’ Tucker and Zephyr face off in ‘Dangerous Animals’ One of Tucker’s victim’s dangles above sharks in ‘Dangerous Animals’ Hassie Harrison fights for survival in ‘Dangerous Animals’

Fw: Hey, Jai. It’s Joshua Ryan with FandomWire. How are you?...

It’s summer, which means it’s beach season, but if you’re like me, Jaws ruined beaches for you long ago. Spielberg’s shark movie instilled a phobia of fish in me at an early age that has grown and evolved as I’ve matured. Still, there’s something about sharks and shark horror that attracts me, even if most entries are as compelling as rotten chum. No movie before or after has come even close to reaching the masterful terror of Jaws, but in honor of its 50th anniversary, I bring you ’10 Great Shark Movies That Aren’t ‘Jaws‘ and Where to Watch Them.’ Be warned, I’m using the term “great” pretty loosely here.

1. The Reef (2010) Directed by Andrew Traucki

The Reef is a straightforward but engaging story about a group of friends stranded in open water with hungry sharks lurking nearby. After their boat is capsized,...

Stars: Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston, Rob Carlton, Ella Newton, Liam Greinke | Written by Nick Lepard | Directed by Sean Byrne

Acclaimed Australian director Sean Byrne returns with Dangerous Animals, an inspired mash-up of two beloved horror genres, serial killer thrillers and sharksploitation. Delivering handsomely – and nastily – in both elements, it’s one of the most enjoyable genre movies of the year.

Set in present-day Surfers Paradise on Queensland’s Gold Coast, the film introduces its killer immediately, as burly fisherman Tucker (a scarily massive Jai Courtney) cheerfully stabs one of two tourists he has just taken on a Swimming-With-Sharks tour, before pushing him overboard.

Dangerous Animals then joins the film’s heroine, free-spirited American Zephyr, who has escaped a miserable childhood of foster homes in favour of pursuing Australia’s big waves. After a hook-up with nice-guy estate agent Moses (Josh Heuston), Zephyr is abducted by Tucker and wakes...

When you go to the Cannes Film Festival, you want to experience films you would not otherwise see. For me, it seems, this was buying a ticket to a horror film, one of my least favourite genres. “Dangerous Animals” (2025) is the first feature film by director Sean Byrne in a decade, and one of the few films playing in the Director’s Fortnight to have already obtained distribution, and therefore a marketing budget. This was apparent as I entered the Theatre Croisette for my screening, as a group of people in shark masks handed out scratch cards to win a scuba diving trip. I did not get the prize, but as the card said, I had survived.

What is surprising about “Dangerous Animals” is how long several characters clearly marked as disposable survive. If you have not seen the trailer, you will feel lulled into a false sense of security...

A tense, darkly comic, cold open to director Sean Byrne’s third feature introduces Bruce Tucker (Jai Courtney), a larger than life Aussie who plies his trade as a pleasure boat captain sailing the shark-infested waters off the coast of Surfer’s Paradise. He wants his clients to get as close to nature’s eating machines as possible and by that I mean really close, as in “pushing said clients overboard into the feeding zone after stabbing them repeatedly” close.

However, the quick kills are mostly reserved for the males in Tucker’s vicinity. His main sideline is kidnapping various young women and imprisoning them on his ship for a short time before dangling them into the water to let his beloved shark “mates” do their thing while he videos the bloody action. Next up on the menu would appear to be free-spirited Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), a resourceful and independent...

Director Sean Byrne has been chumming the water for a long time. His new movie, Dangerous Animals, a shark infested survival thriller, is garnering great reviews and deservedly so. It has a villain for the ages in Jai Courtney, who comes across as part man-child, part Buffalo Bill inspired psychopath, and it has Hassie Harrison as a heroine every bit his equal in the scene stealing department. But the truly dangerous thing about Byrne's film is the depths it swims in. He never misses an opportunity for a thrill but he’s always deftly steering the narrative towards the characters' psychology and, dare I say, sense of the spiritual nature of what they are involved in. In short, this is more than a thrill ride that...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Directed by Sean Byrne (The Devil’s Candy) and based on a script by Nick Lepard (Keeper), the latest in a long and rich line of shark-based horror movies has finally hit our screens. Following its debut at the Directors' Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival, the Jai Courtney-led Dangerous Animals made its opening swim into box office waters this past weekend, taking a reported $1.5 million from 1,636 theaters in the US alone.

Considering the strong competition from major blockbusters such as Disney's live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, Dangerous Animals' debut is not too financially disheartening. However, has it managed to capture the positive attention of audiences? Following its impressive debut with critics on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, earning a huge 90% score that has since mellowed to a "certified fresh" 84% a week later, Dangerous Animals' audience rating is proving almost as impressive.

Following its opening weekend,...

https://youtu.be/WR2btzjmmuc?si=NFJUu_rI9E0aH4C7 Dangerous Animals, directed by Sean Byrne and starring Jai Courtney, Hassie Harrison and Josh Heuston, Dangerous Animals hits theaters on June 6th! Yezerski’s musical works are highly evocative, original and diverse. From the symphonic grittiness of David Ayer’s The Tax Collector to Carlos Lopez Estrada’s quiet drama film Blindspotting; from the avant-garde horror drones of Sean Byrne’s The …

The post IFC Films’ Dangerous Animals appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

Lionsgate’s From The World Of John Wick: Ballerinaopened below tracking on an estimated $25m in second place through Lionsgate as Disney’s family behemoth Lilo & Stitch held on to top place in its third weekend.

Overall North American box office earned an estimated $113.4m per Comscore and the year-to-date has amassed $3.53bn to track a very healthy 26% ahead of 2024 by the same stage.

John Wick spin-off Ballerina starsAna de Armas and while action spin-offs historically have opened significantly below the previous entry in a franchise, the 65% drop-off from John Wick 4 will not make Lionsgate executives happy. Early tracking...

Shark movies usually follow a simple rule: the bigger the teeth, the bigger the terror. But Dangerous Animals isn’t your typical shark-hating flick. Starring Jai Courtney, Hassie Harrison, and Josh Heuston, this new ocean-set thriller from director Sean Byrne does something most shark films never dare: it stops blaming the shark.

With real underwater footage and a human villain at its core, the film flips the genre’s usual script. Instead of toothy predators lurking below, the real danger is already on board. And unlike Jaws, which made generations fear the ocean, Dangerous Animals reminds people that the real monsters are often those who are closest to us.

How Steven Spielberg’s Jaws successfully made a whole generation hate sharks!

Jaws is iconic. Steven Spielberg’s 1975 hit redefined horror, suspense, and the summer blockbuster itself. It turned an animatronic shark into a legend and had people refusing to dip...

Would you prefer being devoured by a shark or mutilated by a serial killer? Well, that is pretty much the plot of Sean Byrne’s summer exploitation horror, Dangerous Animals. If you’ve watched the trailer, you perhaps already guessed the ending, but then again, it’s not a cerebral film, and even with all its predictability, there is no denying that Dangerous Animals is entertaining. A few tropes are avoided; the villain (thankfully) does not have an entire monologue explaining why he is the way he is! And there is a good dose of gore to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Bruce Tucker’s swimming with the sharks experience always attracted tourists. At first glance, he appeared to be a friendly guy, but there was an unmissable manic glint in his eyes. Two young tourists approached him for the once-in-a-lifetime experience, and he looked overzealous when...

Vampires are all the rage this week, with Ryan Coogler’s Sinners now available at home. It’s joined by a bloody indie bloodsucker movie and even a Vietnamese vamp movie both sinking their fangs into VOD. But that’s just the start of this week’s Ten new horror releases, which also include the return of the Predator franchise with the saga’s first ever animated movie.

Here’s all the new horror that released from June 2 – June 6, 2025!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

From Magnificent Films and Silent D Pictures, Sean Cronin’s indie vampire movie Bogieville sank its teeth into all major VOD outlets beginning this past Tuesday, June 3.

In the film, “A young couple on the run come across an American trailer park and are convinced to stay by the sinister caretaker Crawford. But they soon learn that he is...

Sean Byrne never does anything halfway. The visionary director excels at creating visceral nightmares that twist audience expectations through familiar terrain. His 2009 debut The Loved Ones is a sadistic exploration of the teen slasher film while 2015’s The Devil’s Candy is a metal-tinged deconstruction of satanic possession. Byrne’s latest feature, Dangerous Animals, tackles the shark horror genre by suggesting that there may be more sinister killers floating on the ocean’s surface. Bruce Tucker (Jai Courtney) is a surfer and shark diver who uses his ocean tourism business as a front to lure victims into his own deadly jaws. Byrne’s stories may have little in common, but each of his three feature films center iconic villains who command the screen with evil intent while horrifying us with their extreme acts of violence delivered through a gory explosion of color and sound.

The Loved Ones follows Lola Stone (Robin McLeavy...

For a while, Hollywood seemed intent on casting Jai Courtney as the hero. Terminator Genisys tried him out as Kyle Reese; A Good Day To Die Hard cast him as John McClane’s son. But where Suicide Squad showed a glimmer of his kooky potential as the colourfully named Captain Boomerang, Dangerous Animals makes it clear: he’s far better at playing the bad guy. And seriously unhinged ones at that.

In Dangerous Animals, Courtney is both a serial killer and a salty sea dog — like if Quint from Jaws went full Buffalo Bill after his Indianapolis trauma. His Tucker is a grizzled lunatic with a shark expedition business that lures in lonely tourists — who he then gets a kick out of feeding to the teeth of the sea. Courtney is an absolute hoot throughout the film’s 90-odd minutes, whether leading a threatening singalong of ‘Baby Shark’, barking like...

The box office has kicked into high great with a steady flow of films, studio and independent. It’s getting crowded and smaller distributors are hoping the rush will really and truly spill into indie and specialty fare. Signs are good with excellent numbers for Focus Features’ The Phoenician Scheme last weekend, for A24’s Friendship last month and Sony Pictures Classics Jane Austen Wrecked My Life.

All are solid counter-programming to big studio films. But screen-wise, “It’s always challenging when so much stuff is working,” said one distribution executive.

Now it is Neon’s turn to test the market. Fresh of its astonishing sixth consecutive Cannes Palme d’Or winner with Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident, it’s out this weekend with TIFF People’s Choice Award-winner The Life Of Chuck from Mike Flanagan opening in limited release with 16 runs in 8 markets.

The ocean is unleashing a new predator this summer with Dangerous Animals, and our exclusive clip introduces the prey as they wake to the horrifying realization they’ve been kidnapped.

Dangerous Animals is now swimming in theaters as of today, June 6.

In the summer horror movie, “Trapped on a killer’s boat with hungry sharks circling below, a surfer must outwit a predator more dangerous than the ocean itself—will she escape, or become the next offering to the deep? Sean Byrne returns with his third visceral feature.”

Hassie Harrison (“Yellowstone”), Jai Courtney (The Suicide Squad), and Josh Heuston (“Heartbreak High”) lead the cast of Sean Byrne’s shark movie Dangerous Animals.

The clip below introduces Hassie Harrison’s Zephyr as she wakes to discover she’s chained to a bed on Captain Tucker’s boat. Worse, she’s not alone; fellow captive Heather (Ella Newton) is already familiar with Captain Tucker’s routine.

Lionsgate’s Ballerina leads the new films at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, opening in 571 cinemas.

Marketed as From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, the film is the fifth instalment in the John Wick franchise, and takes place between the events of Chapter 3 – Parabellum and Chapter 4.

It sees ballerina-assassin Eve Macarro – played by Ana de Armas – train in the traditions of the Ruska Roma, to exact revenge for her father’s death.

Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, the late Lance Reddick, Norman Reedus and Ian McShane are on the cast, alongside Keanu Reeves reprising his role as Wick.

The...

When you think of iconic movie villains on land or sea, there are certainly some characters that (pardon the phrase) jump out at you. Michael Myers stands shoulder-to-shoulder fin with Jaws. So when director Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones) embarked on the journey creating Dangerous Animals from Nick Lepard’s nautical thriller script, safe to say he didn’t envision it screening at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this May.

“It’s the first shark film that’s ever been officially selected for Cannes,” he says, still reeling from the screening’s standing ovation. “[The audience] is just so film savvy in terms of reading a film at Cannes, and I was worried about it, because it's the first time that an audience had seen the finished film. But they absolutely loved just how fun it was. And I think also, there's so many serious dramas, they were just ready to unleash...

Dangerous Animals marks director Sean Byrne’s third film, following his cult classic The Loved Ones and The Devil’s Candy. The film was so highly anticipated that it made its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival (check out our review Here), and we were also lucky enough to chat with Byrne, and stars Jai Courtenay, Josh Heuston and Hassie Harrison (check out the interviews Here). To help celebrate the release on June 6th, Shudder and IFC invited a select group of journalists and influencers to a shark dive at the Long Island Aquarium in Riverhead, New York. With Courtney himself in attendance, each person was required to slip themselves into a wetsuit, adorn themselves with weights and step into a shark cage with a licensed diver. Then, for twenty very special minutes, you’re in the water with several sharks and various vibrant fish. While the sharks have no interest...

Jai Courtney unnerves as Captain Tucker, a serial killer who ritualistically feeds his prey to sharks in director Sean Byrne‘s Dangerous Animals. The intimidating villain meets his match in Hassie Harrison‘s Zephyr, a tenacious survivor worthy of final girl status.

Dangerous Animals swims into theaters on June 6, 2025, unleashing a twisted battle of wits between predator and prey.

It’s Zephyr’s loner status that puts her in Tucker’s crosshairs, but the killer underestimates just how much fight is in his latest target. For Harrison, a “Yellowstone” actor used to playing characters with grit, Dangerous Animals presented a physical challenge. That’s not just because of the grueling physicality that Tucker’s brand of horror demands but also due to the amount of time Harrison would spend in the ocean when filming in Gold Coast, Australia.

Oh, and it happened to be Winter.

“It was very cold,” Harrison...

Maybe it’s a bad sign when you can predict the exact moment a title card is going to drop. So is the case with Dangerous Animals, a new thriller-horror hybrid from the talented Australian director Sean Byrne. The Aussie first caught the attention of global genre fans with his clever teen horror film The Loved Ones on the festival circuit back in 2009; one hoped he’d live up to its promise and become one of our next B-movie greats. Yet even with a steady hand at the helm, his new film plays surprisingly generic. Frankly, watching it, I began to wonder if I was starting to age into my parents, looking down at these kinds of films and no longer entertained by just hitting the beats of a violent serial-killer movie.

Dangerous Animals doesn’t have a bad set-up––a Peeping Tom riff with a serial killer who likes...

Sharks and serial killers are two of the most enduringly popular themes in horror cinema, so it’s quite remarkable that – despite a few half-hearted attempts – nobody has really brought them together before. Dangerous Animals does so with gusto. It’s the energy and confidence in Nick Lepard’s script that enables it to get away with this. There was never going to be a way to do it that made logical sense, but as long as it makes sense to the serial killer character, and as long as the actor playing him can believe in it, the other elements fall into place.

They are very much in place in a film that sticks closely to formula, but it’s well played. Director Sean Byrne made a splash back in 2009 with his feature début, The Loved Ones, and brings a real sense of style to what could easily have been delivered.

Whether or not Lionsgate’s John Wick spinoff Ballerina clears or falls under $30M this weekend in U.S./Canada, consider the win in favor of exhibition which will have that much more money in the marketplace.

The Ana de Armas action movie is also bowing in 82 countries in what’s expected to be another $30M for a global take, give or take, around $60M; that offshore cash on par to the start of John Wick: Chapter 3. Lionsgate is self-distributing in the UK and Latin America.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

The Len Wiseman $80M-$90M directed movie (largely funded from foreign sales), which was delayed by a year for additional shooting is expected to rank second during the first weekend of June where Disney’s Lilo & Stitch will threepeat No. 1 with $35M, -43%. Lilo & Stitch is flying past $300M this week,...

The difference between a monster and a wild animal is just a matter of perspective. Polar bears may seem cute and cuddly when seen from a distance, but you’d be screaming your lungs out if you were ever close enough to notice the dried specks of blood on their snow-white fur. Fortunately, even the deadliest predators tend to avoid human beings when given the chance, which is why genre films sometimes pair animals with equally predatory humans in order to make them seem even more dangerous.

Case in point: Sean Byrne’s latest thriller Dangerous Animals, which hits theaters this Friday, follows a surfer as she attempts to flee from a deranged man hell-bent on feeding her to his pet sharks. So, in anticipatipn, we’ve decided to come up with a list highlighting six homicidal pets in horror movies! After all, no machete can compete with a weapon...

Indie stunner Sean Byrne returns to theatres this week with his newest nightmare Dangerous Animals, where sharks aren’t the only apex predators hunting prey off the Australian coastline. Written by Nick Leperd (who also penned Osgood Perkins’ forthcoming Keeper) this slick ‘n’ sinister thriller stars Jai Courtney (Suicide Squad) as a hulking serial killer named Tucker with a serious shark obsession. Tucker is 300 lbs of mean-spirited muscle, a shark of the city streets (har har) whose personal philosophy of life and death is viewed through the razor-sharp teeth of the world’s most ruthless killing machine, and his watery weapon of choice.

Dangerous Animals also stars Hassie Harrison (Yellowstone) as Zephyr, a self-sufficient and headstrong American surfer bumming around the beaches in her camper van, living the surfer dream. But when she wakes up chained to a bed in the bowels of Tucker’s boat, the nightmare begins, and...

This past Saturday, Rolling Roadshow brought the Jaws on the Water experience to IFC Films and Shudder’s Dangerous Animals, the shark horror meets serial killer thriller from The Loved Ones director Sean Byrne, and we lived to tell the tale.

Dangerous Animals swims into theaters on June 6 and follows a rebellious surfer caught by a serial killer who feeds his victims to sharks.

It’s a perfect plot, considering that Dangerous Animals’ Texas premiere had attendees watching the film while floating in themed inner tubes on Lake Travis at Volente Beach Waterpark.

While Lake Travis may not have actual sharks, those brave enough to venture into the water were vulnerable to divers moving under the water to deliver the perfect scare throughout the intense film. Quiet moments were often punctuated by an unexpected yelp from those grabbed by divers, ahead of collective cheers and gasps at some of Dangerous Animals’ more brutal surprises.

Dangerous Animals Photo: courtesy of Independent Film Company and Shudder. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release.

Ten years after the haunted house and possession horror The Devil's Candy (2015), Tasmanian director Sean Byrne returns with Dangerous Animals (2025). The story follows Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), a surfer who lives to ride the waves. She refuses to trust anyone enough to be vulnerable and never stays put in one place for too long — as rejected one-night stand Moses Markley (Josh Heuston) learns. When she is abducted by tugboat captain Tucker (Jai Courtney), she must escape the ritualistic fate of being fed to the sharks and confront her demons.

The theme of abduction is a thread that runs through Byrne's feature début The Loved Ones (2009) and Dangerous Animals, despite the latter being a script written by Nick Lepard. Instead of a maniacal sailor who likes feeding tourists to the sharks, Byrne's earlier film...

Most of us have probably heard of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Rolling Road Show’s regular showings of Jaws “on the water.” The events are shown on a big screen, while viewers float on rafts or inner tubes. Of course, 2025 is the 50 year anniversary of Jaws, so Alamo has something even bigger and better planned.

As part of their Great Bites celebration of creature features, Alamo Drafthouse will kick things off with Jaws on the Water, along with a special screening of Jaws in Martha’s Vineyard, featuring a live orchestra.

But there was a special event planned for Great Bites this year, and it involved IFC Films’ and Shudder’s upcoming shark horror movie Dangerous Animals.

On May 31st at Volente Beach in Austin, over 400 enthusiastic fans were present for Dangerous Animals’ Texas premiere showing. The fans had a blast participating in beachside activities, including food and drinks and the...

Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” held onto the top spot at the U.K. and Ireland box office for a second consecutive weekend, drawing £6.1 million ($8.2 million) to push its cumulative gross to a £25.9 million ($34.9 million), according to numbers from Comscore.

Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” secured second place with $4.6 million, bringing its total to $23.5 million after two weeks.

Opening in third, Sony’s franchise continuing “Karate Kid: Legends,” featuring Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio alongside a new generation of stars, debuted with $3.5 million.

Black Bear’s “The Salt Path,” based on Raynor Winn’s memoir and starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, bowed in fourth with $1.9 million. Trafalgar Releasing’s “Peppa Meets The Baby Cinema Experience” rounded out the top five with $1.4 million.

Further down the rankings, Warner Bros.’ “Final Destination: Bloodlines” placed sixth with $1.32 million in its third weekend, pushing its total to $12.7 million. Universal’s...

A badass surfer on Australia’s Gold Coast takes on a villainous tour guide who is ferrying unwary sightseers to view the sharks

Sean Byrne’s gonzo horror thriller premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section of this year’s Cannes film festival, in the sidebar where Cannes traditionally finds a place in its heart for genre or offbeat fare. Yet despite this stamp of authority – and a lead turn from Jai Courtney that could best be described as “gnarly” – I couldn’t get behind this movie, which has a bargain-basement straight-to-streaming feel to it.

The scene is the Australian Gold Coast where surfers come to catch gigantic waves. Hassie Harrison (from TV’s Yellowstone) plays a badass surfer named Zephyr, who travels around in her van as free as the wind sampling the most outrageous swells. She meets-cute with Moses (Josh Heuston), a nerdy guy who is very sweet and yet also kind of hot.

Though the summer movie season got off to a stronger start than last year, June is a bit lacking for promising tentpoles. Yet looking deeper, there’s plenty to seek out, from the best title to premiere at Sundance earlier this year to the anticipated return of a zombie franchise to formally thrilling documentaries to a shark thriller with bite.

10. F1 (Joseph Kosinski; June 27)

After his little-seen Top Gun: Maverick follow-up Spiderhead, Joseph Kosinski returns to large-scale entertainment with F1. While there’s something a little more dull about the proposition of branded entertainment with a sports league (as opposed to his previous outing of brashly unfiltered U.S. military propaganda), here’s hoping the $300 million budget was enough for Kosinski to properly deliver high-octane thrills.

9. Hot Milk (Rebecca Lenkiewicz; June 27)

While Emma Mackey is gearing up for a major year with Julia Ducournau’s Alpha and James L. Brook...

Jaws really did a number on the public’s perception of sharks, and their reputation has been struggling ever since. So it’s cool that Dangerous Animals is a shark movie that treats them as they are: creatures who are simply trying to survive. They are not sentient beings who want to jump out of the water and grab humans into the depths, and they only attack when provoked or think a human is something else. So the idea of a serial killer using sharks to kill his victims can shift the villain label away from the sharks, while still letting them in on the killer action, is intriguing. I enjoyed my time with Dangerous Animals (and you can check out my review Here).

I was lucky enough to sit down with the cast and director of Dangerous Animals to talk all things Shark. I asked stars Jai Courtney, Hassie Harrison,...

While you can see a darker side of Jai Courtney in the upcoming shark thriller, Dangerous Animals, you'd better look out for his evil twin, Die Courtney, if you plan on seeing the movie at Alamo Drafthouse. Ahead of the theatrical release of Dangerous Animals, Collider can exclusively present Alamo Drafthouse's latest "Don't Talk" PSA featuring Courtney and his evil twin, who has a penchant for slicing and dicing movie theater texters and show interrupters. Dangerous Animals takes us into Tucker's (Courtney) terrifying world where he parades around Australia as a man willing to take tourists to swim with sharks. The catch is that they probably won't make it back to civilization. The Sean Byrne film is a new take on both a shark horror as well as a serial killer thriller, and you can experience the thrills (and bites) of Dangerous Animals with Q&As coming to an Alamo Drafthouse near you!

“I Beat Jaws,” reads a headline that a serial killer named Tucker (Jai Courtney) has framed in his boat to commemorate his unexpected survival against a shark. This reference early in Dangerous Animals, directed by Sean Byrne and written by Nick Lepard, serves to reinforce just how large the legend of Jaws looms a half-century after its initial release. It’s not the wisest decision for any film to invoke a classic like Jaws, especially one that can’t begin to hold a candle to Steven Spielberg’s mastery of suspense and spectacle.

Dangerous Animals, an unsuccessful fusion of creature feature and slasher, hits choppy waters early as it sets up its dual story. In a cold open before the title card drop, unassuming couple Heather (Ella Newton) and Greg (Liam Greinke) board Tucker’s bright orange vessel in order to cage dive with sharks. The beasts they fear are underwater,...

After a strong recent career that has seen him appear in the likes of Peter Berg’s historical miniseries, American Primeval, The Suicide Squad, and Buffaloed, the ever-brilliant Aussie actor Jai Courtney is scheduled to return to our screens in a brand-new bloodbath sharksploitation flick, Dangerous Animals. In the film, Courtney plays Tucker, a maniacal serial killer with an unhealthy shark obsession, and is joined in the cast by the likes of Hassie Harrison (Yellowstone), Rob Carlton (Boy Swallows Universe), Josh Heuston (Dune: Prophecy).

Directed by Sean Byrne (The Devil’s Candy) and based on a script by Nick Lepard (Keeper), Dangerous Animals officially made its debut at the Directors' Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival, with a theatrical release in the US arriving on June 6. For those unsure whether to buy a theater ticket and indulge in the bloody madness assembled by Byrne and co, perhaps the film's early...

It’s been nearly 50 years since a certain shark-centric thriller made audiences everywhere scared to get back in the water. But with his new horror film “Dangerous Animals,” director Sean Byrne and his cast want to correct the species’ misrepresentation displayed in “Jaws” by terrifying viewers with the true top of the food chain: the human being.

But not just any old human. In “Dangerous Animals,” Jai Courtney portrays a charming yet brutal serial killer named Tucker who uses the ocean to live out his own killer instincts. Naturally, it’s not the sharks’ fault they’d eat whatever they find submerged amongst the chum. In fact, both the cast and crew went so far as to praise the animals at the film’s Los Angeles premiere at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on Tuesday night — even if they experienced a real-life shark attack on set while making the Australian/Canadian/American co-production.

The Reacher-powered War Machine hype just got another massive boost. While promoting his new thriller Dangerous Animals, Jai Courtney spoke with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, who couldn’t resist asking about War Machine, the upcoming sci-fi action epic from director Patrick Hughes and star Alan Ritchson. The film, currently in post-production, is already being touted by Ritchson as Netflix’s “biggest movie ever,” and according to Courtney, the buzz is very real. He told Collider: “I think that film is going to blow people away. It’s big. It’s a high concept. Alan [Ritchson]’s an absolute savage.”

That’s high praise, especially considering the project’s scale. War Machine follows the final class of an elite special forces boot camp who are forced into a deadly confrontation with a mysterious, possibly extraterrestrial threat. The cast includes Dennis Quaid, Stephan James, Esai Morales, and Keiynan Lonsdale, among others, with Courtney playing one of the recruits.