The first great drive-in movie of the summer arrived this past weekend in the form of Dangerous Animals, which adds some clever and terrifying twists to the killer shark genre.
The movie stars Hassie Harrison as a young surfer named Zephyr who gets abducted by Tucker, a psychotic shark-sighting tour boat captain. Scarred for life both physically and mentally after surviving a shark attack as a child, Tucker now gets his kicks by feeding young women to the creatures while filming their struggles.
Early on, he points out that the sharks aren’t the villains here – they’d prefer not to tangle with humans at all. He’s the real predator, using blood and chum to manipulate them into doing his dirty work. Zephyr struggles repeatedly, cleverly and mightily to escape this fate – and that’s the most you’ll want to know about the plot in advance.
Jai Courtney is mesmerizing and menacing as Tucker, who uses charisma and charm to put his victims at ease before trapping them and revealing his true malevolence. There’s no way on this wrongly-aimed Earth he’ll get an Oscar nod for this role. But in a dream world he would, and the clip they should show during the ceremony would be his cocky drunken post-murder celebration dance, set to Stevie Wright’s “Evie (Let Your Hang Hair Down).”
Dangerous Animals is the perfect movie to be watching after midnight as the second half of a drive-in double feature, which luckily enough is just how it was presented over the past weekend. (It’s also playing indoors, see it in whatever way you can.)
Obviously, there have been many other movies released this year that were fun to see on a big outdoor screen. But there’s a certain magic that happens at the drive-in when you catch a low-budget, unheralded movie that is smarter, funnier and better than it has any right to be.
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Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan’s Sinners was amazing but is overqualified for drive-in movie of the year honors, if that helps explains things a bit better. To a lesser extent, the same is true for Final Destination Bloodlines, Thunderbolts, Ballerina and Novocaine, although the latter might be in the bronze medal position right now.
So far second place might go to the hysterically raunchy comedy One of Them Days, which might have provided the most “Oh my god… they didn’t” laughs since 2023’s woefully underrated Strays. But if it gets here before the drive-ins close for the winter, look for Sisu 2 to make a strong medal run.
You can find out where Dangerous Animals is playing near you at the movie’s official website. But drive-ins are often excluded from such listings, so be sure to find the drive-ins closest to you and check their websites as well.
Watch the ‘Dangerous Animals’ Trailer
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