“When it came out, it was two days of nothing … and then all of a sudden, it just went hectic,” Halley recalls. “You have that thing of people coming up to you in the streets, every person you ever talked to in your life, you’re getting a message from them about it … it was so interesting.

“As a young actor, you’re always trying to get your foot in the door, and now I feel like I’ve at least got one foot in there,” Halley adds. “I’ve got to meet some great people. It’s been a hectic ride, and it is interesting looking back on it. It has all been amazing.”

Though these two cinematic worlds – Boy Swallows Universe and Beast of War – might seem a universe apart, there is a curious parallel in economy of dialogue. In Boy Swallows Universe, Halley’s Gus rarely speaks, communicating instead via hand signals. And in Beast of War, the dialogue is tight, and the tension is ramped up by uneasy spells of silence.

With Gus, Halley says, “that inner monologue gave him a bit of power in a way that the silence was the power. And it was interesting because being taught acting, a lot of it is dialogue-based. So I learnt how much eyes and looks and movement actually make a big difference. Even if you feel it’s not being expressed in a big way, I feel like the audience can feel it.”

As Teddy in Beast of War, “you’re working with so many things around you, and when it’s one or two lines and quick and snappy, you have less control over the rhythm, and you’ve really got to give yourself up to what’s happening to everyone else around you,” Halley says.

“So you just leave it up to what’s happening in front of you, and you have less control over it, which can be scary, but I think in the end [it works] because the movie’s not about you, it’s about what’s happening in it, and you just have to involve yourself,” he says. “I learnt a lot on this film.”

When he first picked up the shooting script, Halley says it left some room to move with each of the characters, as it was Roache-Turner’s intention that each actor have room to bring some of their own individuality to the various roles.

“Kiah left that open for a reason because he wanted people to be able to develop themselves and make it a bit more truthful,” Halley says. “Originally, I think Teddy was a bit older, and we decided after a while to make him younger because everyone else on the boat is somewhat around the same age.

“Having someone who is that innocent, younger, almost baby-face-type kid would be a really good dynamic,” Halley adds. “We played around with that a bit. I felt like I was the little brother on the boat and that’s how we developed the character throughout because that’s what was going to make a more emotional impact.”

The film went into pre-production with Malta in mind as a shooting location, largely because it has a large-scale ocean filming tank in Kalkara – where Gladiator, Troy, parts of Game of Thrones and Popeye were filmed – which would have been a natural habitat to house the shark-terrorised survivors in Beast of War.

The project lost the tank to director Gareth Edwards for Jurassic Park Rebirth, which filmed its underwater sequences there. The switch meant Beast of War would instead be filmed in Australia, and lose its outdoor ocean horizon.

But that sacrifice forced the film into what might be its most meaningful production design decision: to turn the story from an open-sea horror story into a fog-bound nightmare, saturated in streaks of red light coming through the fog, alternating with a calming green ocean bioluminescence in the night sequences.

It also meant that the boys – Leo (Mark Coles Smith), Will (Joel Nankervis), Teddy (Lee Tiger Halley), Des (Sam Delich), Thompson (Sam Parsonson) and Stan (Maximillian Johnson) – would spend long stretches on the raft while filming, creating a tighter-than-usual bond between the cast mates.

Perhaps the most intriguing piece of the puzzle is the shark itself, a mechanical killing machine built over 4½ months by Formation Effects. In an era when many shark horror movies use digital effects – Sharknado, we’re looking at you – using a Jaws-inspired mechanical prop was ambitious.

It also taps into the mystique that surrounds certain sets and props. In Star Wars films, for example, actors who wield lightsabers select their own hilt. And on some Star Trek projects, there have been taboos around anyone but the actor playing the captain sitting in the captain’s chair.

On Beast of War, the shark prop was not so much out of bounds, as something Halley was just in no rush to go near. “I found the thing terrifying,” he says. “The first time they finally got it on the set, we all had a look, mostly just out of pure amazement. But after that first look we did leave it alone, and it wasn’t even, I think, a conscious decision.

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“Individually, and I’m just going out on a limb here, it is a subconscious thing where you realise what place it has in the story and also that it’s just a huge shark, and I don’t think it gives you any reason to want to go near it,” Halley adds.

“So I feel like we did keep our distance, but I do think it works [as an approach to working with the prop] because if we were looking at it and having lunch with it every day, it would probably take away some of the reality when we’re filming those scenes. It’s almost an instinct-based thing.”

Beast of War opens in cinemas on Thursday, October 9.

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