Beast of War review: a snappy WWII nightmare on water

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have served in the defence of so-called Australia at great personal risk since shortly after the British army’s genocidal invasion. Unsurprisingly, their sacrifice has often gone unsung or deliberately obscured by the usurpers.

Those who honourably served during World War II were not considered Australian citizens and did not enjoy full voting rights. Indeed, the military command flip-flopped on whether they should be allowed to fight at all. Until, this is, Japan joined the fray on the side of the Nazis. When First Nations heroes came home, the virulent bigotry remained, including no right of entry to Returned and Services League clubs.

With this disgraceful history in mind, the casting of Nyikina actor Mark Coles Smith in the lead role of Wyrmwood writer/director Kiah Roache-Turner’s WWII-set Australian horror movie Beast of War is inspired.

Beast of War: Smith as a First Nations soldier

Debuting at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), where Smith also appears in the epic We Bury the Dead, the film casts him as Leo, a First Nations soldier, training for combat somewhere in the Australian rainforests. Sadly, despite his commitment to Country, he cops a slurry of slurs from his fellow soldiers, particularly the rabidly racist Des (Sam Delich).

No matter, Leo’s a stalwart type who takes this rancid behaviour in his stride, handing a scrap-happy Des his arse in a river, much to the amusement of their otherwise snarling (if still abundantly charismatic) commander, played by Steve Le Marquand, and swooning nurses depicted by Lauren Grimson and Laura Brogan Browne.

However brutal wrestling through the mud is, in preparation for conflict, the worst by far is yet to come when they set sail from Darwin across the Timor Sea in a corvette that will soon be torn to great hulking shreds by Japanese warplanes. And then a gigantic 20ft shark attacks to pick off the survivors in hilariously gruesome head, arm and leg-chomping fashion.

Beast of War: the sinking of HMAS Armidale

Very loosely based on the sinking of HMAS Armidale by Japanese fighter jets in 1942, Beast of War has hints of the reverence of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, but swims much closer to the absolute pandemonium of shark-adjacent final girl flick, Dangerous Animals.

As Roache-Turner said on the film’s opening night at MIFF, that real-life event was a thoroughly grim affair, whereas he wanted to create an action-packed, entertaining adventure – a task the gloriously schlocky genre veteran easily achieves.

The camera loves Smith, who cuts a handsome dash in uniform, then cracks us up with his proudly ocker outbursts, including preferring his own piss, when thirsting to death, over a Queenslander’s penchant for Fosters (Leo’s a VB man). Depending on your cinematic persuasion, the fact that the only food they have to hand is a tin of peaches might increase Beast of War’s homoerotic tendencies – in truth, present and correct in all war movies.

Locking horns repeatedly with Des, while forging a close bond with Joel Nankervis’

good egg, Will, Leo is determined to save as many men as possible, if only they can make it to the damaged but serviceable motorboat a few feet away. It’s just they may lose a few feet en route, with Formation Effect’s Steve Boyle creating a suitably monstrous looking Great White mother as a giant animatronic menace that (b)eats the shit out of CGI pretenders.

Survivors of the sinking, including Lee Tiger Halley, Sam Parsonson and Maximillian Johnson, now find themselves as chum in human form for the clamouring jaws of this fury from the deep with the major munchies. In amongst the bloody mayhem that follows, Leo is haunted by a tragic memory involving The New Boy star Aswan Reid.

Beast of War: a woozy nightmare

With the seaborne scenes and shark attack robot shot on a purpose-built water tank in Brisbane, there’s a heightened artificiality to proceedings that only helps to bolster Beast of War’s WWII adventure comics feel. Particularly asThe Drover’s Wife cinematographer Mark Wareham’s woozy camerawork makes the most of the disorientating hellfire glare of the ship’s wreckage as refracted through the dense sea fog that descends.

A dread-filled palette recalling Théodore Géricault’s infamously dark and despairing painting The Raft of the Medusa, it’s a nightmare on water that smothers the men’s hope, but not so much that they stop slinging zingers like the fighter jets still strafing the survivors.

As with any comically-tinged horror movie, Roache-Turner and his co-editor Regg Skwarko have a lot of fun cutting from one unfortunate line to the grisly demise a twisted reading of it bestows on said character, who really should have chosen their words better. A mordant sense of humour feasting on turbocharged Australiana that of course sees the men name their milky-eyed tormentor Shazza.  

Daft fun, despite or because of the oodles of organs oozing out of gruesome flesh ruptures, Smith’s leading man presence and the weight of history that brings to Beast of War lends Roache-Turner’s admirable addition to Jaws’ lineage extra kick. Just make sure it’s aimed right at Shazza’s eyes.

Beast of War is showing as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival. It releases in Australian cinemas on 9 October.

Discover more screen, games & arts news and reviews on ScreenHub and ArtsHub. Sign up for our free ArtsHub and ScreenHub newsletters.