Beast Of War (2025) Edge of your seat tension

The best shark movie since Jaws.” Yes, I said it — and I stand by it.

Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood, Sting) has done the impossible. He’s taken the terror of Spielberg’s Jaws, fused it with the grit of a World War II survival story, and delivered a pulse-pounding ride that left me gripping my seat, muttering at the screen, and genuinely shouting, “Leave them alone! Just go away!” That’s how real this shark feels — and that’s how effective this movie is.

Set in the Timor Sea during World War II, Beast of War follows a group of young Australian soldiers whose ship is sunk by Japanese forces. Stranded in the open ocean on a shrinking life raft, they face hunger, fear, each other’s fraying nerves — and the relentless stalking of a great white shark the size of a nightmare. It’s survival horror at its most primal, and Roache-Turner takes that already terrifying setup and cranks the tension to 11.

Here’s the kicker: Kiah didn’t rely on dodgy CGI or generic stock effects. He went old-school, Jaws-style, and built a half-ton animatronic shark that feels heavy, dangerous, and alive. Every time it breaches the water, you feel the weight. The explosions of water displacement, the fin slicing through dark waves, the blood mixing into the froth — it all looks terrifyingly real.

That authenticity makes all the difference. Unlike many recent shark flicks, there’s no cartoonish gloss here. This beast is primal, and the sheer physicality of it made me believe, for those two hours, that this monster was right there in the tank with the actors.

One of the film’s most nerve-shredding sequences (I’m calling it “the floor is lava” scene) sees a soldier trying to reach a wrecked raft while the shark lingers just beneath him, circling, watching. It’s not overblown CGI theatrics — it’s slow, methodical, patient dread. And that, to me, is more terrifying than any flurry of jump scares.

The young cast — Mark Coles Smith, Joel Nankervis, Sam Delich, Lee Tiger Halley, and more — bring a raw, authentic edge to the survival struggle. Their fear feels lived-in, their camaraderie frays under pressure, and when that shark rears its head, their terror becomes yours. You believe every scream, every desperate stroke through the water.

The film might have had a modest budget (around $7–8 million US), but you’d never know it from the sheer scale on screen. Roache-Turner stretches every dollar with practical effects, sweeping production design, and action sequences that feel way bigger than the film’s price tag. It’s stylized, gritty, and somehow both intimate and epic at the same time.

With Beast of War, Kiah Roache-Turner proves he’s one of the most exciting genre filmmakers working today. This isn’t just another shark movie — it’s a war survival epic with teeth, one that respects its audience by going practical, going authentic, and going big.

It’s the first shark film in decades that truly made me feel the weight, the terror, and the awe of facing down a monster of the deep