When their boat is sunk while crossing the Timor Sea during World War II, a young troop of Australian soldiers must find a way to survive the harsh seas on a quickly shrinking life raft. Hundreds of miles from anywhere, they must confront interpersonal conflicts, enemy attacks, and the advances of one very large, very hungry great white shark. From Kiah Roache-Turner, director of Wyrmwood and Sting, comes this uniquely terrifying tale.
Kiah stopped by to chat with us about making the film.
You wrote and directed Beast of War, and it’s inspired by a true story. Where did the idea come from to adapt it into a script, and what kind of research did you do to create it all?
Well, it’s a funny, humble beginning story. I was just hanging out at home, and my producer, Blake Northfield, calls me, and he goes, “I’ve got access to a water tank. Have you got anything set on water?” And I’m like, “no, man”. And he goes, “can you write something set on water?” And I’m like, “well, that sounds like a shark film”, and he goes, “shark film, great; I’ll call you in a month”. And literally, that was the inspiration. So, I’m sitting around going, “what the shark?” (laughs) I’m like, okay, so it’s got to be something to do with the USS Indianapolis speech from Jaws, obviously, because everybody loves that monologue. Everybody’s waiting for that film. Nobody’s made that film. I mean, they made a very serious version of it with Nicolas Cage. But it’s like, no, no, no, entertaining, like Jaws, like Spielberg. We want that one and so I knew that I couldn’t do that, because obviously, they’d already done it. And also, I don’t have $85 million and Nicolas Cage, so I can’t do the American version. So, I did about three and a half minutes of Google searching and found there’s an Australian kind of version of that. It’s the true story of the sinking of the HMAS Armadale in 1942, halfway between Darwin and Timor in World War II, sank by Japanese Zeros and hundreds of soldiers went in the ocean and a lot of them got eaten by sharks. It’s a brutal, horrible, bleak, incredibly heroic story and I kind of knew that I couldn’t do that story because, again, it’s too full on. What happened to those guys, it would just be disrespectful to make a piece of entertainment based on their story. So, it’s inspired by, not based on’ I was very careful to say that.
I kind of did my riff on that idea and I’d always wanted to work with Mark Cole Smith. I wrote the part of the Indigenous soldier Leo for him and I would have been stuffed if he didn’t say yes. Thank God he did. But I was also inspired by my own grandfather who died in the Pacific in Papua New Guinea in World War II. I read his letters and really locked into who he was as a man. A lot of who he was kind of went into Leo. He was a classic, charismatic, lovely guy, very brave and people really trusted him with their lives. I kind of wanted to riff on that but I did a lot of research into the actual historical event. The Armadale. Read a bunch of books and was very much inspired by real people and real things that happened, and their very basic journey is the journey of this film. The big difference is I’ve turned it into a piece of cinematic, entertaining rollercoaster. Because really my job is to tell stories, but also to entertain. And I wanted to make sure that this wasn’t going to be some kind of bleak essay on history. This is a fun shark film inspired by the Spielbergian blockbuster but because it’s real and because I wanted to do my own kind of hyper-stylized riff on this, I also wanted it to be really cinematically interesting. I wanted, in terms of the approach to the editing, I really wanted it to feel a little bit like a tone poem sometimes. Like I wanted it to be entertaining and art at the same time with a shark. So hopefully we’ve pulled that off.
I absolutely love the visual style of the movie. I thought what I got from it was that the colour changed because it captures the delirium of the men trapped at sea as it goes on and I just thought that really just helps bring that to life. Can you talk about just creating that look?
Well, yeah. If you just do the look, it’s just like cinematic masturbation (laughs), but if there’s a reason behind it, then you get away with it. As you said, if you’re trapped on a raft and you’re starving to death and you haven’t got any drinking water, your mind is going to go into a delirium and you’re going to start experiencing life in a very, very hyper-realistic fashion. And so, it’s kind of got an acid-drenched look to it, which I think is justified psychologically. I also knew pretty early on in the production that we were going to have to do this indoors in a giant water tank. The only way for me to pull that off was to lean into the fog of it all, the fog of war, and have them just locked in a fog bank, which does two things. That allows me to shoot indoors in a giant water tank and not have to worry too much about the edge of the tank because it’s hidden in fog and, so that’s a budget necessity. But it also allows me to do this just hyper-stylized look. And nothing is more beautiful than coloured lights through fog. To keep the palette from becoming boring, we decided that every scene would visually change. It would go from these beautiful dusky blues into these amazing, majestic pink sunrises, into blood-red sunsets. And then at night, we’d have the bioluminescence coming out of the water. So, you’ve got these neon greens lighting it up like a science fiction film. And I was figuring if we really go all out with the look of the film, then you’ll forget the fact that it is just seven guys trapped on a raft, which can get boring if you’re not careful.
Yeah, but it’s never boring. And that’s the trick. I mean, it’s always tense. But even before the shark comes on screen, there’s a scene towards the beginning. The character Will falls into the mud. How did you do it? Did he really fall into that mudhole?
Yeah, we just dug a big hole, and we filled it with fake mud, which was like organic coffee beans for some reason (laughs). So, he’s basically fallen into a giant muddy cup of coffee. And man, we just kind of did it. I mean, this poor guy, that was Joel Mankiewicz’s first day. And he’s playing Will, and he looks 17. I think he’s like 21. This is his first feature film. And I’m like, “all right, mate, run up that hill and then fall in the mud hole”. And he’s like, “all right, so I’m just doing this, am I?” And I’m like, “yeah, yeah, you’re just doing that, man”. And it was freezing in there and he’s shaking. We’re trying to make sure he doesn’t get hypothermia. And it was a hell of a first day for him. But again, there was a reason for that. I wanted a scene where he could be in peril and be saved by Leo so that kind of forces them into a bond. But also, it foreshadows the liquid death that is going to occur when their warship is sunk. I wanted the idea of drowning to be very present, even in the first six minutes of the film. But only this time he’s drowning in mud during a training sequence. But yeah, that was fun to shoot.
Probably not for him though.
(laughs) Not for him. But I mean, I very much enjoyed it. I’m just sitting back this whole time at the video village watching these poor guys swimming around in the tank. I never even went in the tank. Like even at the end of the last day, the crew kind of went up to my first AD and they’re like, “can we throw Kiah in the tank?” And he looked over at me and I’m like, “nah, man. No.” I’m like, “maybe 10 years ago; I’m a 46-year-old man. Comfort is my priority. You don’t chuck me in the tank (laughs)”. Yeah, so I never even went in there, but part of the great job of being a director is that you get to torment these wonderfully talented, beautiful actors. Privilege of the job (laughs).
Now there’s a great fight scene towards the end where between a pilot, and the men on the raft. How did you coordinate creating a fight in a limited space like that?
Yeah, that was funny. Like the guy who was playing that part, he just came on and did his own choreography. I thought he was an actor. I was just like, he’s so good. And then the stunt coordinator goes, “oh no, he’s like one of the best stunt coordinators in the country”. and I’m like, “really? Did we just cast like the perfect guy?” And he’s like, “yeah, he’ll just choreograph that himself”. So, he worked with the actors and came up with all that stuff himself and I just pointed a camera at it. It was fantastic.
What would you like audiences to take away from the film?
Look, it is inspired by a real event so, if I can just get people to Google that and see the heroism that these Australian young men went through back in the 40s, just to shine a light on what they went through would be fantastic. But I just didn’t want to embarrass myself in the shadow of Spielberg, to be honest. If people watch it and go, that’s a pretty good shark film, then I can die happy. You know what I mean? It’s just like, you’re never going to be able to do better than Jaws. But if somebody just goes, not bad, because most shark films are pretty crap. And if you can make a good one, that’s special. That’s really what I hope.
That was what I wanted to say to you just before we go, is that I thought it made sharks scary again. The shark was terrifying. After Sharknado and things like that where it made it just silly, but this brought it back to basics.
Well, if you treat it seriously and you use a practical shark, then you can. I mean, sharks are terrifying. Unfortunately, they’re also very gentle, beautiful creatures. But like the concept of a shark, the jaws of death coming up from the darkness below when you’re sort of helplessly kicking in an unnatural space, it’s horrific. So, you want to treat that with a bit of respect when you’re making a film about it. You don’t just throw them around in a Sharknado. No shade on those filmmakers but yeah, no, I’m a Jaws guy. I’m not a Sharknado guy. I take this stuff seriously. I find them very scary.
Is it getting a physical release like on Blu-ray or DVD?
Oh, yeah. I mean, they usually do. I don’t really have much to do with that. But I think all of my films eventually have some kind of physical release. I mean, my preference, obviously, is the theater. But then you want to watch it on Blu-ray.
Well, thank you so much. You take care and hopefully chat to you again soon.
I really appreciate this. Take care.
BEAST OF WAR will be released In Theaters and On Digital on October 10, 2025