The director of The Loved Ones and The Devil’s Candy is going nautical for his next horror film. Variety is reporting that Sean Byrne is gearing up to make a shark movie but with a twist.

This film titled Dangerous Animals, takes place on a boat where a woman named Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), according to Variety, is “Held captive on his boat, she must figure out how to escape before he carries out a ritualistic feeding to the sharks below. The only person who realizes she is missing is new love interest Moses (Hueston), who goes looking for Zephyr, only to be caught by the deranged murderer as well.”

Nick Lepard writes it, and filming will begin on the Australian Gold Coast on May 7.

Dangerous Animals will get a spot at Cannes according to David Garrett from Mister Smith Entertainment. He says, “‘Dangerous Animals’ is a super-intense and gripping story of survival, in the face of an unimaginably malevolent predator. In a clever melding of the serial killer and shark movie genres, it makes the shark look like the nice guy,”

Shark movies will probably always be a mainstay in the horror genre. None have ever really succeeded in the level of scariness reached by Jaws, but since Byrne uses a lot of body horror and intriguing images in his works Dangerous Animals might be an exception.

Tarot starts off the summer horror box office season with a whimper. Scary movies like these are usually a fall offering so why Sony decided to make Tarot a summer contender is questionable. Since Sony uses Netflix as their VOD platform now maybe people are waiting to stream it for free even though both critic and audience scores were very low, a death sentence to a theatrical release. 

Although it was a fast death — the movie brought in $6.5 million domestically and an additional $3.7 million globally, enough to recoup its budget — word of mouth might have been enough to convince moviegoers to make their popcorn at home for this one. 

Another factor in its demise might be its MPAA rating; PG-13. Moderate fans of horror can handle fare that falls under this rating, but hardcore viewers who fuel the box office in this genre, prefer an R. Anything less rarely does well unless James Wan is at the helm or that infrequent occurrence like The Ring. It might be because the PG-13 viewer will wait for streaming while an R generates enough interest to open a weekend.

And let’s not forget that Tarot might just be bad. Nothing offends a horror fan quicker than a shopworn trope unless it’s a new take. But some genre YouTube critics say Tarot suffers from boilerplate syndrome; taking a basic premise and recycling it hoping people won’t notice.

But all is not lost, 2024 has a lot more horror movie offerings coming this summer. In the coming months, we will get Cuckoo (April 8), Longlegs (July 12), A Quiet Place: Part One (June 28), and the new M. Night Shyamalan thriller Trap (August 9).

Abigail is sinking her teeth into digital rental this week. Starting on May 7, you can own this, the latest movie from Radio Silence. Directors Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillet elevate the vampire genre challenging expectations at every blood-stained corner.

The film stars Melissa Barrera (Scream VI, In The Heights), Kathryn Newton (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Freaky, Lisa Frankenstein), and Alisha Weir as the titular character.

The film currently sits at number nine at the domestic box office and has an audience score of 85%. Many have compared the film thematically to Radio Silence’s 2019 home invasion movie Ready or Not: A heist team is hired by a mysterious fixer to kidnap the daughter of a powerful underworld figure. They must guard the 12-year-old ballerina for one night to net a $50 million ransom. As the captors start to dwindle one by one, they discover to their mounting terror that they’re locked inside an isolated mansion with no ordinary little girl.”

Radio Silence is said to be switching gears from horror to comedy in their next project. Deadline reports that the team will be helming an Andy Samberg comedy about robots.

Abigail will be available to rent or own on digital starting May 7.