Kiah Roache-Turner Archives

Review: ‘Beast of War,’ starring Mark Coles Smith, Joel Nankervis, Maximillian Johnson, Lee Tiger Halley, Sam Parsonson, Tristan McKinnon and Sam Delich

January 10, 2026

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from left: Lee Tiger Halley, Mark Coles Smith, Maximillian Johnson and Joel Nankervis in “Beast of War” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

Directed by Kiah Roache-Turner

Culture Representation: Taking place in Australia and in the Indian Ocean’s Timor Sea, in 1942, the horror film “Beast of War” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asian and indigenous people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After their ship crashes and overturns, seven World War II Australian soldiers get stranded in the Indian Ocean’s Timor Sea, where they are attacked by a great white shark.

Culture Audience: “Beast of War” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching faking-looking monster movies that are derivative and have laughably bad dialogue.

Mark Coles Smith in “Beast of War” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Beast of War” is a poorly staged and sloppily edited movie about World War II soldiers attacked by a great white shark while stranded at sea. The acting is as terrible as the idiotic dialogue and awful visual effects. None of it looks believable.

Written and directed by Kiah Roache-Turner, “Beast of War” is supposed to take place mostly in the Indian Ocean’s Timor Sea. But all the scenes that are supposed to be in large bodies of water look like they were filmed in a very controlled studio. The movie is also lighted unnaturally, with glowing hues that wouldn’t be found in this environment in real life. This moody lighting is something you might see in a nightclub, not in shark-infested open waters. This phoniness is why “Beast of War” relentlessly insults viewers’ intelligence.

“Beast of War” (which takes place in 1942) begins by showing the soldiers during boot camp in an unnamed wooded area in Australia. The main protagonist is Leo (played by Mark Coles Smith), a heroic type, who immediately clashes with arrogant sleazeball Des Kelly (played by Sam Delich), which leads to a rivalry that affects what happens later in the movie. As shown in the movie, Des has a grudge against Leo because Leo ambushed Des and defeated Des during a boot camp combat training exercise.

The movie wastes some time showing mostly small talk and other activities that reveal nothing about these soldiers’ personal backgrounds or personalities. Leo is portrayed as a stereotypical “good guy,” while Des is portrayed as a stereotypical “bad guy.” All the other soldiers in the movie have generic personalities, except for an eccentric loner named Thompson (played by Sam Parsonson), whose nickname is Tommy.

“Beast of War” has a few scenes where Leo and his boot camp pal Will (played by Joel Nankervis) flirt with two nurses named Susan, nicknamed Susie (played by Laura Brogan Browne), and Hazel (played by Lauren Grimson), who slow dances with Will when Leo and Will sneak off to the nurses’ camp to meet up with Susie and Hazel. These nurses are never seen again in the movie.

That’s because after this rendezvous, the soldiers go on a ship somewhere in the Timor Sea. An explosion (presumably a bomb) causes the ship to crash and sink in the ocean. Most of the people on the ship do not survive this explosion.

However, seven of the soldiers end up on a wooden raft as they fight for survival: Leo, Des, Will, Thompson, Bobby (played by Tristan McKinnon), Teddy (played by Lee Tiger Halley) and Stan (played by Maximillian Johnson). They’ve got one gun, three grenades, a tin of peaches, a can of gas, a knife, two rescue flares and no fresh water. It’s also very foggy during the beginning of their ordeal.

The raft is not too far from a small motorboat that could be their way to get to shore safely. They don’t know if the motorboat will work, but someone has to swim to the motorboat to find out. The stranded soldiers are also at risk of being attacked by Japanese military that’s monitoring the area. And there’s another big problem: Soon after the stranded soldiers end up on the raft, a great white shark attacks.

The first time the shark attacks, it leaps out of the water to bite someone on the raft. And even though the shark is large, there’s no mistaking what it is, someone still screams: “What the fuck was that?” Leo answers, “Shark. A big one.” This is the type of brain-dead dialogue that pollutes the film. Some of the dialogue is also too modern for 1942.

Leo knows a lot about sharks because his younger brother Archie (played by Aswan Reid) was killed by a shark, as seen in flashbacks. Leo witnessed this brutal death, and he is still haunted by it. That’s the only backstory that’s given to Leo, who gets more background information in the movie than the other characters get.

In every shark attack movie, at least someone seems to lose a limb. In this movie, it’s Stan who has this unlucky fate first. His left leg is bitten off by the shark. There are some unrealistic “shark versus man” scenes underwater. And the movie gets more ridiculous as it goes along.

“Beast of War” has a lot of shouting and bloody scenes, but it’s just gory noise that has no creativity or real suspense. It’s a horror movie that’s never very scary, especially because the shark looks like a throwaway animatronic from an amusement park. It’s also very easy to predict who will die in this movie. A caption in the beginning of “Beast of War” says that the movie is “inspired by true events,” but this low-quality abomination looks as realistic as a shark assembling a gas station toilet.

Well Go USA released “Beast of War” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and on VOD on October 10, 2025. Shudder and AMC+ will premiere the movie on January 16, 2026.

Review: ‘Sting’ (2024), starring Ryan Corr, Alyla Browne, Penelope Mitchell, Robyn Nevin, Noni Hazlehurst, Silvia Colloca, Danny Kim, Jermaine Fowler

March 26, 2024

by Carla Hay

Alyla Browne in “Sting” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Sting” (2024)

Directed by Kiah Roache-Turner

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the horror film “Sting” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, one Asian and one Latina) representing the working-class and the middle-class.

Culture Clash: After a mysterious spider’s egg drops into the apartment where a 12-year-old girl lives, she takes care of the spider that hatched from the egg, and the spider turns into a large, deadly monster.

Culture Audience: “Sting” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in “creature feature” horror movies that don’t take themselves too seriously.

Alyla Browne and Ryan Corr in “Sting” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Sting” is an intentionally campy horror film about a spider monster and the 12-year-old girl who unwittingly unleashes this terror and tries to stop it. The movie is a mostly skillful blend of gruesome and comical. “Sting” has some continuity issues between scenes, and don’t expect a lot of witty dialogue, but these flaws are overshadowed by a movie that is entertaining to watch for people who are inclined to like horror movies.

Written and directed by Kiah Roache-Turner, “Sting” takes place almost entirely inside a shabby apartment building in New York City’s Brooklyn borough. (The movie was actually filmed in New South Wales, Australia.) The movie has some flashbacks but shows that the terror began when an egg fell from the sky and crashed through a window of the apartment of a family where 12-year-old Charlotte Krouse (played by Alyla Browne) found the egg and secretly kept it. A regular-sized female spider hatches from the egg. Charlotte calls the spider Sting.

Charlotte lives in the apartment with her mother Heather (played by Penelope Mitchell); Carlotte’s stepfather Ethan Miller (played by Ryan Corr); Heather’s mother Helga (played by Noni Hazlehurst), who apparently has dementia; Helga’s stern sister Gunter (played by Robyn Nevin); and Charlotte’s half-brother Liam (played by Jett Berry and Kade Berry), who is 6 months old. Charlotte’s biological father, who is only called “The Professor” in the movie, abandoned Charlotte and Heather several years ago.

Charlotte still admires her father and has had trouble accepting Ethan (who is the father of Liam) as part of her family. Charlotte is also somewhat resentful of Liam, who is taking up a lot of her mother’s attention. Charlotte still has a lot of her worship of her father—so much so, that she has created a professor character modeled after her father for a comic book series that she writes called Fang Girl. Ethan is the illustrator of the comic book series, which is a hit. “Sting” doesn’t really give an adequate backstory for this unusual collaboration, but there’s a scene where Charlotte is very nitpicky with Ethan about how he is illustrating the professor character in the most recent comic book that they are working on together.

Also in the building are two neighbors who are featured in this movie: a widowed mother named Maria (played by Silvia Colloca) and a nerdy scientist named Erik (played by Danny Kim), who has an aquarium so that he can study fishes’ ability to recreate pancreatic cells. There’s also a talkative exterminator named Frank (played by Jermaine Fowler), who is repeatedly called to the building.

The trailer for “Sting” gives away a lot of what happens in the movie. Sting grows into an enormous deadly spider. Charlotte also finds out that Sting has the ability to expertly mimic sounds. Because this is a horror movie, not everyone is going to make it out alive. A running joke in “Sting” is Helga calling for an exterminator (usually Frank), every time she hears noises in the walls. Helga seems to be unaware that these noises could be people getting killed.

“Sting” does exactly what you think it will do in a movie about a killer spider on the loose in an apartment building. The cast members’ performances aren’t outstanding, but there is good comedic timing in the right places. Fowler (who seems to want to be a younger version of Chris Tucker) has some of the funniest lines in the movie. The gore in “Sting” isn’t over-the-top bloody, but a lot of it will make some viewers squirm. “Sting” serves up enough jump scares and laughs to make it a solid option for mature viewers who want to see a horror flick that isn’t too disturbing or nauseating.

Well Go USA will release “Sting” in U.S. cinemas on April 12, 2024. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in select U.S. cinemas on March 25, 2024.

Review: ‘Wyrmwood: Apocalypse,’ starring Luke McKenzie, Bianca Bradey, Shantae Barnes-Cowan, Tasia Zalar, Jay Gallagher and Nicholas Boshier

May 25, 2022

by Carla Hay

Bianca Bradey and Luke McKenzie (center) in “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” (Photo by Thom Davies/XYZ Films)

“Wyrmwood: Apocalpyse”

Directed by Kiah Roache-Turner

Culture Representation: Taking place in Australia, the horror film “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with a few Aborigines) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A mercenary soldier has his loyalties tested during a battle of humans against zombies in an apocalypse.

Culture Audience: “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of zombie movies but don’t care if the story is good and just want to see a lot of bloody violence.

Tasia Zalar and Shantae Barnes-Cowan in “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” (Photo by Emma Bjorndahl/XYZ Films)

With a forgettable story and even more forgettable characters, the zombie flick “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” is just an idiotic and incoherent mush of violence that quickly becomes boring. No one is expecting a zombie movie to be high art, but an entertaining zombie should at least give viewers some suspense over what’s going to happen in the story. There are absolutely no surprises in “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse,” which is just an obnoxious and very predictable mess.

Directed by Kiah Roache-Turner (who co-wrote the “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” screenplay with his brother Tristan Roache-Turner), “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” is the sequel to 2015’s “Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead,” with both movies taking place in Australia during an apocalypse. (How unoriginal for a zombie movie.) The screenwriting is so lazy, it’s essentially the same story as the first movie: A woman, who has become human mutant zombie, has to be saved by a sibling, who is trying to not let this zombie sister get captured by authorities.

In “Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead,” the zombie sister is Brooke (played by Bianca Bradey), who is supposed to be saved by her mechanic brother Barry (played by Jay Gallagher) during a series of inevitable gory scenes. Brooke and Barry are also in “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse.” In “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse,” a zombie sister named Grace (played by Tasia Zalar) is supposed to be saved her sister Maxi (played by Shantae Barnes-Cowan), while both sisters encounter a mercenary soldier named Rhys (played by Luke McKenzie), whose job is to capture zombie civilians to force them into a military that doesn’t have enough people.

The chief villain in “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” is Surgeon General (played by Nicholas Boshier), the corrupt leader of the military. In the beginning of the movie, Grave and Maxi are looking for Barry and Brooke, because Brooke and Grace have something in common: They’re both a “hybrid”: a human who has not completely turned into a zombie yet. Rhys ends up capturing Grace, but his alliances might or might not be with Surgeon General during the course of the story.

As a sequel, “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” does a terrible job of explaining who Brooke and Barry are, as well as their backstories from “Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead.” As a narrative film, “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” barely does anything to make viewers care about any of the movie’s characters, who say nothing but trite and embarrassingly bad dialogue. All of the acting in this movie is mediocre to horrible. “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” is just a sloppily directed zombie film that has a lot of blood and guts, but this movie has absolutely no heart or soul.

XYZ Films released “Wyrmwood: Apocalypse” on digital and VOD on April 14, 2022.