Beast of War, a new WWII war movie meets shark survival thriller, is now available to stream on VOD platforms and is also available as a brand new Blu-ray from Well Go USA Entertainment, who sent Cherry the Geek TV a copy to review. Despite a few flaws, this one is a winner.
Beast of War follows a group of young Australian soldiers in 1942, stranded on a life raft in the Timor Sea after their ship in sunk by Japanese planes. They must battle internal conflicts, the elements, and a monstrous great white shark determined to pick them off one by one, forcing them to confront their prejudices and find unity to survive.
Written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood, Sting), Beast of War was inspired by the true story of the sinking of the HMAS Armidale and features practical effects, and character-driven psychological horror. The film stars Mark Coles Smith, Joel Nankervis, Maximillian Johnson, Lee Tiger Halley, and Sam Delich.
I’ll get the negatives out of the way first. There have been a plethora of sharksploitation films over the past few years and a lot of them have horrible CGI effects which take you out of the film. Beast of War uses practical shark effects like Jaws did, and it should be applauded for that. My concern is that the shark design is goofy. The shark has this permanent angry, almost zombie-shark looking face. It pops out of the water and it just looks….unnatural. They could have just kept the design simple. It’s a shark. A normal looking shark is terrifying. A purposely angry looking shark with a goofy furrowed brow just takes you out of the film for a second.
My other complaint is over the cinematography. The raft is stranded on the calmest sea ever (it’s obvious that they are filming in a water tank on a backlot somewhere) and the lighting is either way too dark or there is a weird yellow or orange backlit background. I suspect this is used to cover the fact that they are shooting in a limited space and trying to hide that fact. I get it. There’s a limited budget and you have to do what you have to do. Personally, it’s an aesthetic choice that I wasn’t a fan of.
However, what makes Beast of War great is that the story is so compelling and the characters are so well written and fleshed out, that that audience will overlook the weird-faced shark and limited budget sea. This is a pretty darn good film.
Before the characters end up stranded on the sea, we spend a third of the film with them on land while they are training. We learn who each of them are. We learn who takes shortcuts. Who is the bully. Who puts the team before themselves. All of these things we learn come back later when they are stranded. We know who we can trust and who we can’t. Mark Coles Smith is a standout as Leo.
If you like shark attack films, Beast of War ranks as a solid B film.
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