Beast of War: Kiah Roache-Turner’s shark thriller gets gory R rating ahead of October release

Shark thrillers are hit and miss, but one of my most highly anticipated films of the rest of the year happens to be a shark flick: Beast of War, a World War II-set shark thriller from Wyrmwood Road of the Dead, Wyrmwood: Apocalypse, and Sting director Kiah Roache-Turner. Beast of War is set to receive a theatrical and VOD release on October 10th, and with that date right around the corner, the Motion Picture Association ratings board has confirmed that the movie has been given an R rating for bloody violent content, gore and language.

The script has the following synopsis: 1942. A warship carries hundreds of Australian soldiers across the Timor Sea to the frontline of WW2. Suddenly, Japanese fighter jets scream out of the sky, and within minutes the ocean becomes a hell of steel, fire, oil, and blood. With the vessel destroyed, a handful of soldiers build a makeshift raft from floating debris as they cling to their lives. Tensions run high between the hot-headed and terrified young men, as they band together in an effort to survive. But their biggest battle is yet to come. In the dark below, a great white shark hunts in the wreckage and is drawn to the smell of fresh blood in the water.

Roache-Turner previously revealed that the idea to make Beast of War came about because his producer told him he had access to a water tank in Malta and asked if he had any ideas for a story that could be filmed at the tank. Roache-Turner said, “I immediately went, well, it’s got to be a shark film, because what else is it gonna be? And the only shark film I’m interested in seeing is the USS Indianapolis speech from Jaws made into a film.” Realizing his movie wasn’t going to have the budget to properly bring the USS Indianapolis story to the screen, he “did about two seconds of Google searching and found the story of the HMAS Armidale that sank off the coast of Western Australia, halfway between Darwin and Timor. It was the same story — ship goes in the water, no distress signal sent, lots of poor Aussie guys doing amazingly heroic things, some were killed by sharks and many were never seen again. But I got to the end of the research and realized I couldn’t do a historically accurate version as it would just be too bleak.“

So Beast of War is only loosely inspired by real events – and the filmmaker is leaning into the fun and horror of it all by having Paul Trefy, who built the shark used in Unbroken, make a monster movie version of a shark. “I’m not super worried about it being realistic — I want my shark to look like a monster, so we’re working on the look of the thing. It’s had its eye stabbed out and has had a series of fights with propeller blades so is all cut up, and has zombie-like broken teeth… so when that face comes out of the water it’s going to be really full-on.“ Roache-Turner’s approach was to make this an “unashamedly fun” movie, and I can’t wait to see how it has turned out.

Are you interested in Beast of War, and are you glad to hear that it has secured an R rating? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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