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Fantastic Fest 2025: Beast Of War Review
Image Credit: Well Go USA Entertainment
Loading...Directed by: Kiah Roache-Turner
Written by: Kiah Roache-Turner
Starring:
Mark Coles Smith – Leo
Joel Nankervis – Will
Sam Delich – Des
Maximillian Johnson – Stan
Lee Tiger Halley – Teddy
Sam Parsonson – Thompson
Tristan McKinnon – Bobby
Aswan Reid – Archie
Running Time: 87 minutes
Rated R for bloody violent content, gore and language.
Shark attack movies are the Secret Santa of cinema: you may be lucky and get exactly what you were hoping for, but more often than not it’s going to be a dud. No one is expecting a masterpiece out of every shark movie they see, but the aquatic subgenre has become so prevalent that an increasing number of them make Jaws: The Revenge look like – well, Jaws by comparison.
Fortunately, we’ve had a bit of a renaissance in shark movies in the big screen in 2025. To start with, Dangerous Animals took a different approach to the shark movie to engrossing results earlier this year. And Beast of War, which screened at Fantastic Fest, is another winner. This period Australian thriller from Kiah Roache-Turner pits a group of young solders against a fantastic (and practical!) man-eater to gory, thrilling results.
Loosely inspired by a real event, Beast of War takes us back to World War II as a group of Australian army recruits are training to go to war. The group of fresh blood includes Leo (Mark Coles Smith), an Indigenous man with tragedy in his past, who early on helps his fellow recruit Will (Joel Nankervis) during an exercise. That earns him approval from his drill sergeant and enmity from Des (Sam Delich), a hothead who is not averse to throwing racial epithets his fellow soldier’s way.
The tension between Leo and Des begins early, but the two have to work to put it behind them when their ship is sunk in the middle of the Timor Sea in the midst of a fog bank. The survivors – which include Leo, Will, Des, Stan (Maximillian Johnson) and Thompson (Tristan McKinnon) – are at a loss at how to signal a rescue or get to a shore that is hundreds of miles away.
Things only get worse when a massive shark is drawn by the blood in the water and decides it wants to make a meal of what’s left of the unit. With resources low, injuries adding urgency and personal issues coming to the forefront, it becomes a battle of wills as much as anything if the squad wants to survive.
Kiah Roache-Turner is no stranger to oversaturated horror subgenres. He previously took on the zombie genre in the Wyrmwood films, and tackled spiders in last year’s fun creature feature Sting. He knows how to rediscover fear in these subgenres and applies that to great effect with Beast of War. Despite not filming on the ocean proper – the film was shot on a soundstage via water tank – Roache-Turner is able to immerse the audience in the movie through some suspenseful tricks and an old-school approach to keeping exciting.
Central to that is the shark itself, a gloriously practical creation that pays off in spades. The shark looks like a thing of nightmares and its presence is felt strongly throughout the movie, even when it hasn’t been seen on screen for a little while. Roache-Turner employs the Jaws standard of using his monster sparingly, but making sure it has maximum effect when it does show up. An inspired device results in an air raid siren off the boat getting stuck on the shark’s fin, thematically connecting its approach to that of a weapon of war bearing down on them.
The cast is delivering exactly what they need to out of their roles, and even the guys that you know will soon be lunch get chances to shine. The camaraderie and personal tensions between the various survivors read as authentic and earned, and little bits of banter give us enough humor to keep things from becoming too slow or bogged down. Smith and Delich are the breakout performers here; Smith has a star aura and gives us plenty to glimpse under his stoicism, while Delich adds a bit of humanity to his more antagonistic role to keep Des from becoming one-note.
Shark movies generally lean toward campy fun or serious, tension-filled thriller and Roache-Turner goes hard for the latter. The practical gore effects are quite good; they aren’t anything we haven’t seen before but they don’t hold anything back. Legs go, people are chomped in half under the water, and guts spill – and the movie is all the more effective for it.
Perhaps the best part about the film is its tight pacing. At an economical 87 minutes, there isn’t a lot of downtime, and that creates a pressure cooker of sorts for the characters as we perceive them. There’s plenty of thematic work in play regarding isolation and survival, but it also functions great as a vicious little shark thriller with gnashing bursts of violence. Even as it runs through familiar beats, it keeps things compelling down to the climax.
Fantastic Fest takes place in Austin, Texas from September 19th through the 25th. Beast Of War released in theaters and on Digital on October 10th.
