John Jarratt first turned up on our screens in 1975 as a handsome young man in Picnic at Hanging Rock. When Jarratt returned, 30 years later, in what will probably now be considered his signature role, Mick Taylor in Wolf Creek, it was as a grizzled old bastard. (Yes, there were John Jarratt roles in between. Just go with me on this.)

Jai Courtney is not yet 40, so the “old” part doesn’t yet apply, but the grizzled part is in full force in Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals, which sees Courtney fulfil the birthright of the Australian actor previously fulfilled by Jarratt: to reemerge after a period quiet as a genuine psychopath. There are probably more prominent examples of this than Jarratt, as it’s a trajectory for many Aussie icons – to eventually become that lethal thing from which you cannot escape.

Dangerous Animals is a reemergence of Sean Byrne as well. Byrne left our mouths agape with 2009’s The Loved Ones, which has become a genuine cult horror, far more confrontational than your average genre film. If Dangerous Animals finds the Australian director in more mainstream form, it may only be because some compromise was necessary to get up his first film in ten years, since 2015’s The Devil’s Candy. If being a little more accessible gets Byrne back in front of our eyeballs, it’s a worthy trade off.

Make no mistake, though, that there are plenty of confrontational moments in this story of a serial killer on the high seas, some of which may become seared into our memories. And that’s a little something of an Aussie tradition as well, as there are parts of Dangerous Animals that call to mind Phillip Noyce’s Dead Calm.

Courtney plays Bruce Tucker, the Queensland proprietor of a business that takes tourists out on the water to swim with sharks in Bruce’s ramshackle tugboat. Many if not most tourists get the standard package, which is to be lowered in a cage among all the makos and bulls, and return in one piece with their pulses quickened and their adrenaline rushing. Those that Bruce determines are not connected to anyone who may come looking for them, though, will become stars of a different sort of show involving the sharks, which he will capture on video to feed his darkest predilections.

When there aren’t enough tourists who fit that description, the hunter goes hunting. It’s in this way that Bruce claps a hand over the mouth of Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), a surfer whose lack of social ties can be assumed from the fact that her entire life is contained inside her van. Little does Bruce know that Zephyr did make a connection the night before when she hooked up with Moses (Josh Heuston), a handsome stranger whose car she jump started. When Zephyr disappears before light in order to catch the first wave and maintain her shark-like, solitary existence, free from the emotional complications she has tried to avoid, Moses gets it in his head to try to seek her out, which could save Zephyr’s life.

The difference between good horror and bad is not, in most cases, the difference between the abilities of different directors to stage the tropes that comprise the genre. Arguably, the difference is more attributable to how well the actors communicate the fear inherent to their situation. And here a previously unmentioned actress really shines and allows Byrne’s skill with those tropes to make even more of an impact.

When Zephyr is handcuffed on the boat on one bed, the other bed’s occupant is British traveller Heather (Ella Newton), whose delivery into the claws of Bruce is depicted in a cold open. Newton’s performance demonstrates the hysterical hopelessness of their predicament, which isn’t to say that the performance itself contains hysterics. Rather, she shows us exactly how knowing you’re going to die affects you mentally, especially if it’s intermingled with the regret of having been told by your mother that something like this might happen if you expose yourself to the dangerous world of solo travel. That’s not to spoil that Heather is going to die, but let’s just say that Byrne didn’t get under our skin with The Loved Ones because everything worked out well for the main characters.

So yes, Byrne is still capable of haunting us with moments we can’t unsee, which range from the squirmy and grisly to the lonely and sad. One image here of an object floating in the water – let’s just leave it at that – is particularly effective in the latter regard.

And then there’s Courtney. He chews into this material with relish. The actor isn’t far gone from playing handsome young matinee idol types, and he may do so again in the future. For now, though, Courtney has found an evident calling in the sadistic monster who oozes the charm of a scraggly sea captain, just the type tourists imagine would take them out on the water, when he wants to. When he wants to pervert those same mannerisms to make a potential victim squirm over the depth of his psychopathy, he can do that too – and reveals himself quite the dangerous animal indeed.

 

Dangerous Animals is currently playing in cinemas.