Movie Review: The Devil's Mouth (2026)
Synopsis: Still mourning her father's death, Sara takes a trip to Thailand with her friends, including her controlling and impulsive BFF Max. Following in her father's footsteps, Sara and her pals travel to the Devil's Mouth, located in water-filled cave system. Despite a recommendation from their guide to take the easier green path, Max insists they take the more-difficult red path, adding even more strain on her already strained friendship with Sara. Hours later, when they are deep within the cave system, the friends find their lives in danger from a hungry trapped shark that kills their guide and leaves them trying to find a way out alive.
Who's in it? The movie stars Kathryn Newton, Lana Conor, Nico Hiraga, Gavin Casalengo and Tommi Rose.
Review: My wife suggested a movie night last night so, after grabbing some fish dinners from our local bowling alley/bar & grill, we came home and looked for something to watch. After reviewing several choices, we settled on The Devil's Mouth.
It turned out to be a movie with an overused but proven premise that was better than expected.
I'll start out with my biggest complaint about the movie - it is very dark. To be fair, that is mostly be design. The characters are traveling in a cave system, and the darkness made the movie realistic while also making it easier to hide the limitations of a CGI shark. There is, however, a fine line between "this is a very realistic movie" and "I don't know what's going on because I can't see anything" and the film does cross that line quite a few times.
Like most horror movies, the film does rely heavily on the main characters making a lot of questionable decisions, starting with not listening to their guide, Wat (Tayme Thapthimthong). However, this is one of those few movies where that works because most of those bad decisions are the result of Max (Conor) and it allows for the tension between her and Sara (Newton) to build, especially as the latter tries to make smarter choices but is still forced to follow her "friend" because Max would rather go off on her own and possibly die than listen to someone else's suggestion that made much more sense.
I also liked how the movie didn't wait until they were in the caves to build that friendship tension and instead first had Sara being left behind on a boating excursion, leading to a somewhat chilling scene with jellyfish. Between that and Max insisting Sara give up a dream job in New York to move to Los Angeles with her, I found myself wondering if Sara would just use the shark as an excuse to kill her controlling friend on purpose or even why she was friends with those people in the first place.
I mean, imagine paying for four of your friends to travel to another country only to have them forget you are there and nearly cause you to die. If it had been me, that friendship would have been over with the first jellyfish sting.
The film also did have quite a few surprises in it, including a couple times when it seemed as though they were in the clear, only to end up with their lives in danger again. Between that and the constant tension between those who were still alive, it helped build the suspense and made me wonder if any of them would survive.
Final Opinion: I would have liked to have been able to see a bit more at times and the movie only happens because the group listens to the compulsive girl rather than the expert or even the one footing the bill. However, it did still prove to be an entertaining and suspenseful movie I didn't hate watching.
My Grade: B
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Here are some reviews of other movies with sharks:
Movie Review: Under Paris (2024)
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