Beast of War (2025) Film Review [Fantastic Fest 2025]

Set during World War II, Kiah Roache-Turner’s Beast of War (2025) follows a battalion of young Australian soldiers as they prepare for their first deployment. Focusing primarily on Leo, played by Mark Coles Smith, an indigenous soldier with a troubled past who also earns the ire of fellow soldier, Des (Sam Delich), due to his background. While the sense of brotherhood remains divided up to their first deployment, a subsequent attack and being shipwrecked with a great white shark picking them off one by one, shifts the focus to a desperate fight for survival.

Shark-themed horror has long been a hit-or-miss subgenre, often characterized by cheap thrills attached to misleading titles. But occasionally, standouts that offer a unique take (or at least an entertaining one) emerge—Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals and Morihito Inoue’s Hotspring Sharkattack come to mind. Roache-Turner doesn’t quite reach that level here, yet Beast of War still delivers a fast-paced, visceral entry that keeps its head above the waters of a crowded genre.

The film does present a successful mash-up. Capturing the era of World War II by focusing on a single troop and never going too big with the idea (the boys never make it to the forefront), Kiah Roache-Turner makes the most of both shark and trapped horror, fast-paced, exciting, and bloody.

Perhaps more importantly, the crew of men subjected to the horrors of the sea feel authentic, with no real lull in performances; even if it is just the first bloodied man dragged to sea. Notably, the friendship between Leo and Will (played by Joel Nankervis) offers an endearing portrait of camaraderie in extreme circumstances.

Beast of War also has some memorable moments of dark humor, starting with the killer shark getting a siren stuck in his head, causing him to announce his arrival for a portion of the film, as well as the inevitable, but still humorous, drinking your own piss bit.

Technically, Beast of War impresses. The film captures the dread of isolation on open water, aided by fog that transforms the ocean into a bleak void. The shark itself, scarred and mangled, is a striking presence, while the minimalist score amplifies the soldiers’ helplessness.

Yet for all its strengths, the film falters in originality. The early barracks scenes lean on tired clichés, like Des’s one-note racism to make him a one-note bad guy. The shark attacks, while effectively staged, rarely push beyond what audiences have seen before, and the absence of underwater sequences makes it feel visually conservative compared to films like 47 Meters Down. Hints at Leo’s deeper backstory, showing past trauma and knowledge about Great White Sharks, feel shoehorned in to give a character the ability to explain some shark facts to others; the tragedy of not having Shark Week during World War II.

Premiering at Fantastic Fest before a limited theatrical and digital rollout on October 10th, Beast of War offers a satisfying slice of aquatic horror, one that is certainly worth catching on the big screen if possible. While rather formulaic, the film still has bite, and for those shark-obsessed horror fanatics, it will certainly fill that void among a sea of uninspired projects.