Jai Courtney sinks his teeth into a shark-infested serial-killer flick in which the man-eaters are nowhere near as nasty as man himself. Tasmanian director Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones, The Devil’s Candy) takes the helm of a fun yet suitably icky thriller that premiered at the Director’s Fortnight section of this year’s Cannes. Yellowstone’s Hassie Harrison plays surfer Zephyr, an American drifter fleeing her sketchy past by riding the waves of Gold Coast Australia, before becoming the latest in a long line of women to be kidnapped by Courtney’s tour-boat operator Tucker.

Of course, this sick shark-obsessive has no idea who he’s messing with and Tucker’s attempts to feed Zephyr to his fishy chums don’t go to plan. Josh Heuston (Dune: Prophecy) plays Moses, a puppyish estate agent who hooks up with Zephyr ahead of her ordeal and is instantly smitten, only to get drawn into the drama. Although the modest budget sometimes shows, particularly in the depiction of its pointy toothed predators, Dangerous Animals is a suitably nail-gnawing survival horror with a gutsy heroine who’s easy to root for, and an endearing and wildly out-of-his-depth love interest.

The cliché-heavy script is nothing to shout about but the actors give it their all and this largely successful mash-up of Jaws and Wolf Creek is strikingly shot in places while also challenging conventional movie wisdom of sharks as the ‘bad guys’. If we’re made to wait in slightly frustrating fashion, the sharks do eventually get their moment to shine, but a scenery chomping, skin-crawling Courtney undoubtedly steals the show.

Dangerous Animals is in cinemas from Friday 6 June.