Sharks don’t hold a great reputation when it comes to movies. They’re predators and killers - you simply don’t see cult classics called ‘Puppynado’. Instead, sharks dominate horror movies, lurking in the dark water and attacking unsuspecting tourists, or wreaking havoc on fishing boats. 

This summer, Dangerous Animals twists the concept of the bloodthirsty beasts to a different level, turning them into the weapon of choice for a sadistic serial killer. The film follows Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), a surfer who is kidnapped and held captive on the boat of a madman who kills his victims by dropping them into shark infested waters. Just like any horror movie, it’s up to Zephyr to figure out how to escape a seemingly impossible scenario.

What screenwriter Nick Lepard does well is combine two horror genres (sharks and serial killers) into one film to enhance the fear factor and turn up the suspense.

Serial killer movies often focus on the killer themselves and the methods in which they taunt their victims, such as:

• Scream and the use of the knife, mask and voice
• Silence of the Lamb and cannibalism or skinning victims
• Psycho and a boy who loves his mother

Shark movies look at different kinds of sharks, how they lurk in the water and attack at will:

• Jaws and a deadly shark killing beachgoers
• Deep Blue Sea and smart sharks attacking those stuck on a seaborne lab
• The Meg as a pre-historic shark come back to life

Dangerous Animals combines the “danger” of a human being obsessed with sharks, and ritualistic killings. It proves once again that sharks will always hold a place in the popular imagination, especially when given a fresh twist. 

Let’s take a look at some of the best shark films that take the horror genre from land into the ocean waters.

Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw in 'Jaws'

Jaws (1975)

Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece, and his first commercial hit, revolved around a killer shark tormenting a town on the Fourth of July weekend. What makes the shark particularly scary is imagination. For a good part of the film the audience sees very little of the shark, even as it chomps up unsuspecting swimmers. This puts the terror into the minds of the viewer and teaches filmmakers that sometimes what we don’t see is scarier than what we can.

Deep Blue Sea (1999)

As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And that’s what a group of scientists experience on a remote research facility as they experiment with a possible cure to Alzheimer’s Disease. Testing their potential cure on a trio of sharks seems good in theory until they become (according to the poster) bigger, smarter, meaner and faster.

Stuck in an isolated location with a killer on the loose plays into a lot of horror movie plots. Deep Blue Sea uses smart sharks as the maniacal antagonists that hunt down characters one by one.

Open Water (2003)

Based on a true story, Open Water takes one scary element of the ocean (being stranded) with another terrifying aspect (sharks). Imagine this: you go out on a scuba diving excursion out in the ocean but realize when you resurface that the boat has left. Now, there is nowhere to go and the possibility of being shark food increases by the minute.

This is another concept of having to survive in a remote location against impossible odds. These aren’t genetically modified sharks they’re up against, but it shows how stories with two characters in a harrowing situation trying to survive can be used to horrifying ends.

Mandy Moore and Claire Holt in '47 Meters Down'

47 Meters Down (2017)

While films like Deep Blue Sea and The Meg are shark-horror but campy, 47 Meters Down takes the ‘what would you do’ scare tactic like Open Water and asks, “What if you were stuck in a shark cage in the ocean with an hour of oxygen in your scuba tank?” and then adds sharks above them.

The story follows two sisters on vacation who find themselves in this unfortunate predicament. It becomes a race against time as they rush to find a way to the surface without being mauled by sharks. There isn’t anything sinister at play like in Dangerous Animals where the victims are placed in danger by a maniac, but rather circumstances. The horror comes in as victims have no way of escape with the exception of swimming through circling bloodthirsty sharks.

The Meg (2018)

The megalodon is a prehistoric shark long believed to be extinct, but when a rescue diver’s attempts go awry, he believes it’s because of this creature. However, no one believes this is the reason for his failure, which is one of the horror movie tropes that signals bad news for lots of people.

This is a similar approach to Jaws in which the sheriff beckons the city officials to close the beaches but they refuse to believe him. Naturally, the Meg is real and it’s come to terrorize anyone it pleases. The only one capable of stopping it? The person everyone thought was crazy.

Part shark-horror blood fest and part disaster movie, The Meg is a big budget horror that played on the Jaws vibe of unstoppable shark wreaking havoc on unsuspecting victims.

Sharknado (2013)

Here’s the pitch: a freak hurricane picks up thousands of sharks and throws them on land. Sold! Let’s make 6 of them (and they did).

This may have been the jumping of the shark when it came to impossibly entertaining disaster movies and set off a wave of SyFy Channel creature features. Its success stems from it being self-aware and not taking themselves too seriously. While not necessarily horror, it deserves an honorable mention in this list of shark films.

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Shark movies are great for the horror genre because it has a built-in scare. Lots of people are naturally afraid of the ocean and the creatures within it, which is why there have been many films focusing on sharks and their appetites for humans, and Dangerous Animals continues this tradition to bloodcurdling success.