MIFF: Get your horror fill in Beast of War

Belle Colyer reviews Kiah Roache-Turner's latest Aussie horror set in shark-infested WW2 waters.

With the 50^th anniversary of Jaws bursting its way onto the big screen, it feels only fitting that a new monster shark takes a gore-filled bite at the monster horror genre, with a classically Australian twist in Kiah Roache-Turner’s ‘Beast of War’.

Take a swim in the shark-infested waters of Beast of War. (Image: MIFF)

Before the screening at MIFF, we were lucky enough to hear a short speech by director Kiah Roache-Turner. Beast of War came about from a phone call between Roache-Turner and his producer, he said, in which the producer's house offered a large filming tank on a soundstage and wanted something put in it. The producer quipped that it was time for a shark movie, and lo and behold, here we are, eagerly awaiting our screening at the ACMI cinema.

The watery opening credits of the movie are set to an ominous rumbly hum of the score that immediately and deliberately reminded me of Jaws, composed masterfully by François Tétaz. Despite the opening chumming the water with sharky expectations, our story starts on land. A squad of baby-faced youths stand to attention with the pouring rain rattling off their helmets like gunfire as they are harangued about the importance of camaraderie, unleashed into the wilderness to bond via trauma. I was particularly delighted to hear the familiar giggles of a kookaburra cementing these early scenes firmly in the Aussie bush, even as I was disappointed at the lack of shark screentime.

This is how we are introduced to Leo, played brilliantly by Mark Coles Smith, the only Indigenous member of the squad and Will (Joel Nankervis), the youngest of a squad of what seemed to me to be barely teenagers. After Leo saves Will from drowning in a hidden mud sinkhole, the pair’s older brother/younger brother dynamic is cemented and holds strong against the bullying from the rest of the squad. The framing of the shots is close; the camera sticks to the characters and gives the whole thing an intimate and at times claustrophobic feel, while naturalistic lighting and bush-appropriate bird and insect noises lend it an air of realism and density.

Who of our crew of motley soldiers will survive Shazza, the carnivorous threat to the HMAS Armidale's crew? (Image: MIFF)

The brotherly bond between Leo and Will gives strength to the characters through the rest of the film’s delightfully blood-soaked runtime. The HMAS Armidale, carrying the squad from Darwin across the Timor Sea to the front, is stuck in place due to thick fog and ambushed by Japanese fighter planes, which send the ship into the deep with terrifying speed and efficiency. I was particularly nervous during an underwater scene where the camera closely follows Leo, squeezing himself through a small hole in the hull of the ship and then pulls back to show his silhouette exiting into the chokingly massive watery limbo of the open ocean. The sinking of the HMAS Armidale is the true event that inspired Roache-Turner, although at this point the historical narrative abruptly exits the movie as fast as the dorsal fin of the monstrous Great White Shark enters it.

Cinematographer Mark Wareham utilises the suffocating closeness of thick fog, the endless (and for me extremely terrifying) unknowable darkness of the ocean at night and strategic dramatic environmental lights, including a beautiful moment of bioluminescence lighting up the movement of the ocean, creating a dreamlike visual landscape that serves to heighten the tension between the boys on the raft and the fantastic monster lurking below them. 

The animatronic shark herself, nicknamed “Shazza” by Roache-Turner during production, is extremely impressive on the big screen. Her teeth slicing through the water towards a hapless soldier sent gasps through the MIFF audience. Shazza was played by two different animatronic sharks, one 4.5-meter-long model mounted on an underwater dolly system that allowed her to shoot through the water and a shorter and larger ‘head’ puppet played by stunt performer Chris Bridgewater in a scuba suit for the up close and personal glamour shots. Famously, Jaws’ shark animatronic ‘Bruce’ had massive problems that delayed shooting, and while Shazza was not nearly as much of a diva, she had her own issues with the chlorine added to the filming tank for the safety of her human co-stars, degrading her circuits and connections. Luckily, her creators at Formation Effects have handled this kind of thing before, as lead designer Steve Boyle has seven other shark movies under his belt, and they got her working beautifully. 

Beast of War's sound design and cinematography makes this Aussie horror a must-see. (image: MIFF)

The film manages to toe the line between too much shark screentime and not enough, and her ever-present threat in the water is enhanced by the clever addition of a broken air-raid siren stuck into her dorsal fin by one of her victims. The siren gives off a spine-chilling wailing noise when she surfaces and adds sound to a normally silent threat. The tension is masterfully broken during the days on the raft with the quintessentially Aussie brand of darkly sarcastic humour, which has become a welcome signature for Roache-Turner, and raw emotional moments between the boys. This movie is definitely not for the weak of stomach as the endless quantities of blood and viscera, another signature of Roache-Turner’s directorial style, spilled across the screen as each of the shark attacks played out in gory, glorious detail. 

On the downside, anyone who knows anything about sharks will have problems with the mischaracterisation of poor Shazza. The presence of almost 200 freshly dead victims from the Armidale would attract not only one lone (if terrifyingly big) shark but would instead ring the dinner bell for all types of creatures for kilometres around. She also would be feeling quite ill from her massive binge, as adult great white sharks usually only eat an average of 9-18kg of food every 3 to 4 days, although it is possible that, as a monster shark, her dietary needs are vastly different to the average Great White. I also personally had a recurring question as to why the raft-bound boys didn’t simply make makeshift paddles and/or spears out of the masses of wreckage around them, but I also accept that this is a horror film, and horror film character logic doesn’t work like that.

‘Beast of War’ is a masterful and deliciously gory addition to the Australian horror canon and a great continuation of form for director Kiah Roache-Turner. The emotional turmoil of the humans is handled with unexpected depth and nuance, while the great lurking monster beneath the waves is given her due reverence and literal pounds (and pounds) of flesh. While definitely not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, Beast of War takes the concept of people facing the most primal fear of an inglorious death as a war metaphor and glues fins to it. 

5/5.