Warning: This article contains spoilers for Dangerous Animals.Dangerous Animals has a reasonably straightforward ending as far as the plot goes, but there are many details and thematic layers to unpack. The movie follows the bloody exploits of Tucker (Jai Courtney), who runs a cage-diving business in Queensland, Australia, which is a front for his activities as a serial killer who murders various tourists by dangling them over shark-infested waters and filming them being devoured. His latest victim is Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), an American surfer who finds herself handcuffed to a bed in a locked metal chamber deep inside Tucker's boat.

Zephyr seems like the perfect victim because she's a lone wolf who tries not to make connections with other people. While she secretly longs for closeness, her background of being bounced between foster homes has left her jaded. However, 2025's Dangerous Animals gives her an ally in the form of Moses (Josh Heuston), who falls for her after a one-night stand and is the only person to notice that she has disappeared. After tracking her down to Tucker's boat, Moses also finds himself subdued and handcuffed to a bed, with Tucker intent on feeding both of them to the sharks.

Do Zephyr & Moses Survive At The End Of Dangerous Animals?

Both Sustain Serious Injuries

Because Dangerous Animals blends a killer shark movie with a serial killer thriller, there are multiple threats that need to be overcome in order for both Zephyr and Moses to survive. Additionally, both characters sustain serious injuries over the course of the story, including Moses being stabbed several times in the gut by Tucker and Zephyr being forced to break and then bite off her own thumb in order to get out of her handcuffs during an ill-fated attempt to escape. However, both characters do manage to live to the end of the movie.

In addition to merely surviving, Zephyr's ordeal has taught her that she not only desires a connection to the people on land, but that having these connections might be majorly important to her life. In addition to the bond that she forged with Moses being something that helps her survive in the first place because it brings Moses to her and interrupts Tucker's original plan, it gives her something to live for that helps her continue to find the energy within herself to fight to survive her kidnapping, in spite of the fact that Tucker consistently thwarts her plans.

Dangerous Animals leaves off on a hopeful note, with Zephyr itting to an unconscious, possibly dead Moses that he is important to her, only for him to wake up and say "I knew it," implying that they will continue to be romantically involved once they get back on the mainland. Additionally, the shark-infested waters should not pose an issue for them, because Zephyr has lit a flare that alerted a nearby party boat to their distress.

What Happens To Tucker In Dangerous Animals?

He Is A Formidable Opponent

Although Tucker survives being knocked around multiple times by both Zephyr and Moses and seems too in control of the situation to lose, he ultimately perishes at the end of the movie. This happens because, after he shouts "boo" to scare Zephyr into falling in the water when she's hanging on for dear life, a shark ends up swimming away from her rather than eating her, allowing her to swim around the side of the boat, sneak onto the deck, and shoot Tucker with a harpoon gun after saying "Ooby Dooby, motherf---er."

[Tucker's death] brings the character's story full circle...

However, Zephyr does not deal the killing blow to Tucker. She instead knocks him into the water, and he is devoured in spectacular fashion by a large shark, which bursts out of the water to catch him in its mouth before dragging him underneath the surface. This brings the character's story full circle, because his initial fascination with sharks came from the fact that he survived an attack from a Great White when he was a child that left him with a giant shark bite scar across the entire side of his torso.

Why Didn't The Shark Eat Zephyr?

The Moment Could Be A Metaphor

When Tucker attempts to feed Zephyr to the sharks, two of them refuse to eat her. The first time, it is because a smaller shark has been scared off by the arrival of an even bigger one. However, when that shark's turn comes, it ignores her too, after having a moment where they share eye . It is possible that the shark simply isn't hungry, because Tucker already recently fed them his previous victim, Heather (Ella Newton). However, it seems like the shark may have recognized Zephyr as an apex predator, allowing her to instead deliver Tucker as its meal.

What Does "Ooby Dooby" Mean?

It's A Recurring Motif In Dangerous Animals

The fact that Zephyr says "Ooby Dooby" to Tucker before hitting him with the harpoon gun may not have made sense to the serial killer, because it is a reference to a 1970 Creedence Clearwater Revival song that Zephyr hears playing in Moses' car after she gives him a jump in the beginning of Dangerous Animals. Discussing her hatred of the treacly song and her preference for deeper CCR tracks like "Fortunate Son" is one of the first proper conversations that she starts with Moses after icing him out while driving him to his stalled car.

Moses defends his song choice by sharing his opinion that "Ooby Dooby," which Zephyr complains is about a "goofy-ass dance," is actually a metaphor for love and that feeling in your heart when you find the one and go for it because there doesn't seem to be any alternative. This sincere and indefatigable approach to love is what propels Moses to do anything it takes to find Zephyr, so her referencing this song while attacking Tucker is an homage to his efforts, as well as a tacit ission that she is beginning to embrace her feelings for him as well.

The Real Meaning Of Dangerous Animals

There Are Multiple Thematic Arcs Throughout The Plot

Dangerous Animals contains multiple overarching themes that give its story texture beyond its unique combination of genre elements. This includes the throughline about Zephyr's ordeal teaching her to reconsider her previous approach to life, which was to hide from the world by refusing to connect with other people and spend all of her time in the ocean rather than on land, because that is where she feels untouchable.

Tucker consistently compares both himself and Zephyr to sharks...

The biggest clue to the other major theme in Dangerous Animals comes from the title. Tucker consistently compares both himself and Zephyr to sharks, though he also compares her to a marlin that does not realize that its attempts to escape are futile because it will always be on the fisher's hook. In addition to his obsession with animals emphasizing the ironic juxtaposition between his day job and his murderous activities, his thoughts on the hierarchy of the animal kingdom prove to be his downfall, because he thinks he is a much more potent predator than he proves to be.