Podcast: ‘Dangerous Animals’ Gets Uncertified

When you've written one of the definitive rankings of shark movies, you get to call yourself an expert on the genre. That's certainly the case with Certified Forgotten cohost Matt Donato, whose breakdown of the best shark movies for IGN is as definitive a list as you can get. So with a new shark movie in theaters – one that includes Jai Courtney as a paunchy boat captain and serial killer – we just had to take our talents to the Gold Coast to talk Dangerous Animals.

The only place Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) has ever truly been happy is on the ocean. But after spending months bumming around Australian beaches, she meets Moses (Josh Heuston), a fellow surfer who makes her think about a life on land. It’s an adorable meet cute – or at least, it would be, if it weren’t interrupted by Tucker (Courtney), a local tour guide who also dabbles a bit with serial killing on the side. Now, Zephyr must find a way to escape Tucker’s boat before she’s the latest victim fed to the fishes. The latest film from Sean Byrne, writer-director of The Loved Ones and The Devil’s Candy, Dangerous Animals is a perfect mashup of serial killers and sharks.

In this short excerpt from the episode, Donato explains why the film's documentarian approach to wildlife makes it such a good shark movie:

You just have to have a good shark to be a decent shark movie. And so many of them have terrible CGI. They can't pull it off, they don't use practical. And what works here - it's kind of like The Reef, where a lot of the shots here are real sharks, but almost like wildlife footage shots. It's not the tank that they are shooting in.

The Dangerous Animals episode of the Certified Forgotten podcast is now available to stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, or the podcast platform of your choice.