By Stephen Schaefer

A surprise hit at the recent Cannes Film Festival, the unapologetically demented “Dangerous Animals” pits a captive if determined woman on Australia’s high seas against the sadistic looney who plans to film her being eaten by sharks.

Hassie Harrison’s Zephyr is the plucky, free-spirited surfer abducted by Jai Courtney’s Tucker, a shark-obsessed serial killer whose greatest joy is recording and then re-visiting the gory endings he’s devised for his female victims.

“He’s a kind of scary guy,” Courtney, 39, acknowledged in a video interview. “But within that, what’s essential is to give a character like Tucker some real light and shape.

“I always feel it’s my responsibility if I’m playing a ‘bad guy’ to find some real, human truth in there. And it’s great if you get to have a bit of fun with it.

“Hopefully, audiences do feel the threat of him but at the same time, enjoy when he’s on screen. That’s what it’s all about with this particular genre.

“You need to be jumping out of your seat and terrified — and at the same time, like having a really good time.

“I mean, this film doesn’t take itself too seriously in that sense. Obviously, the stakes are high. It’s life and death, pretty much for the whole run.

“We realize this threat from the opening scene and announce that we want people to go on a ride. And we want them to be laughing and connecting to the love story that’s within this thing as well.

“Hopefully, they’ll like seeing a little bit of the human within Tucker.”

As to where he starts, “There’s clues in the fact that he was actually the victim of a shark attack at a young age.”

There’s a reason, Courtney knows, why the sharks here look so frightening.

“We shot this on open water, on a real boat. Everything is as you see it, which just adds to the life we’re able to give it, helps us dispel any notions you have to suspend your disbelief.

“Funnily enough, all the sharks you see on screen are real, in this sense that that footage has been pulled from real shark documentation, which is really cool.

“When I read this I thought, ‘How are you gonna make them look real?’ Because, obviously, we need them to do certain things, and I feel like animation, computer-generated imagery, with shark stuff, it’s always a little clunky moment. You have to forgive it.

“But this was a real thing in visual effects because they were able to basically lay over real shark footage into the movie. They meticulously sifted through hundreds of hours of shark documentation to match how we needed the sharks to move within our frame.”

“Dangerous Animals” is in theaters June 6