Survival is the only victory in director Kiah Roache-Turner‘s (Wyrmwood) World War II shark attack horror movie Beast of War, and the film has received an “R” rating from the MPA ahead of its premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas this coming September.
Beast of War is rated “R” for “bloody violent content, gore and language.”
The period WWII film is loosely based on real-life events, pitting soldiers against a great white shark, and will be released in theaters and on VOD from Well Go USA on October 10.
Beast of War “follows a warship carrying hundreds of Australian soldiers across the Timor Sea to the frontline of WWII. Suddenly, Japanese fighter jets scream out of the sky, and within minutes the ocean becomes a hell of steel, fire, oil, and blood. While a handful of soldiers build a makeshift raft from floating debris as they cling to their lives, their biggest battle is yet to come. In the dark below, the ultimate apex predator — a great white shark — hunts in the wreckage and is drawn to the smell of fresh blood in the water.”
The horror movie stars Joel Nankervis, Mark Coles Smith, Sam Delich, Lee Tiger Halley, Sam Parsonson, Maximillian Johnson, Tristan McKinnon, and Aswan Reid.
Formation Effects handled the movie’s shark effects, utilizing a mix of classic old school animatronics and puppeteering, with that practical work aided by cutting edge visual effects.
The team previewed in an official press release sent out this month, “The shark, an epic scale that hasn’t been done in Australia before, was a multidisciplinary approach across prosthetics, animatronics, puppeteering and CG animation, all led by the Formation team.”
“This project was an absolute dream for a creature maker,” said Steve Boyle. “The shark couldn’t just be a visual effect; it had to feel like a living, breathing presence. We built it to perform in real water with the actors, ensuring every scene felt authentic.”
Boyle’s statement continued, “The digital effects then pushed the creature beyond the physical to deliver full-scale, heart-pounding attack sequences.”
The press release goes into further detail: “At the heart of the shark’s creation was a custom-engineered, half-ton animatronic powered by a unique compressed-air propulsion system, enabling it to move through the water with tremendous weight and presence. Covered in meticulously crafted silicon skin, the animatronic featured fully articulated mechanics controlled by puppeteers, who ensured its jaw and body motion felt organic in every shot.”
