DARK AGE

During a massive rainstorm, a trio of poachers heads out into a local river in the Northern Territory to hunt crocodiles. Upon finding a massive, 7.6 metre/25-foot long saltwater crocodile, the poachers attempt to capture it. However, the beast tips their boat over and attacks, leaving only one survivor—John Besser (Max Phipps).

The next day, ranger and herpetologist Steve Harris (John Jarratt), Oondabund (Burnum Burnum), the leader of a local Aboriginal community, and his second-in-command Adjaral (David Gulpilil) head out to check on the poachers and rescue Besser. Besser, however, vows revenge against the beast.

The beast subsequently attacks and murders an Aboriginal child. Harris is assigned by his boss Rex Garret (Ray Meagher) to kill the beast. However, Oondabund refuses to allow this, revealing to Harris that the beast—named Numunwari—is believed to be a mystical repository of the community's souls.

It then kills a thug at a local harbour. Harris leads a search for it, only to turn up nothing. Harris convinces Oondabund to help him hunt the beast, in exchange for capturing and releasing it upriver away from people in its original home. A reluctant Garret agrees.

Harris, Oondabund, and Adjaral set out hunting the beast along the river. Besser and one of his friends also set out to hunt the beast by trapping it in a net, intending to kill it. However, the beast is able to drag Besser into the water and bites off his arm.

Harris, Oondabund, and Adjaral are able to successfully capture the beast and bring it into the mainland. The trio set about transporting the beast in a truck and are unknowingly pursued by Besser and his friends and Harris's girlfriend, Cathy Pope (Nikki Coghill), who intends to warn the trio. They manage to arrive at the beast's home, only for Besser and company to arrive immediately after.

Besser attacks the beast with an axe as it flees into the river, while his friends engage Harris, Oondabund, Pope, and Adjaral in a gunfight. Oondabund is fatally wounded by one of Besser's men, but the others are able to fend them off. Besser loses track of Numunwari in the river and is ambushed by the beast and dragged underwater to his death. Sometime later, Adjaral feeds Oondabund's remains to the beast in accordance with their religion.

The giant crocodile is captured and relocated, but is attacked; it kills its pursuer, and Oondabund is killed in the conflict. Adjaral later feeds Oondabund's remains to the crocodile according to their tradition.

The ending resolves the human and spiritual conflict by allowing the sacred crocodile to return home, while highlighting the cost of violence between people and nature. The act of feeding Oondabund's remains to the beast underlines the film’s respect for Aboriginal customs and the deep connection between the community and the creature, closing the story on a note of uneasy peace.