Everyone has their movie comfort food. You know, the TV Dinner that isn’t healthy in any way, but you’re gonna love for the 10th consecutive night Home Run Inn Frozen Pizza. Mine is the animal disaster flick. Since Jaws, no one’s tried to make a prestige film out of one, meaning I’m getting something very silly or very exciting, and completely guttural in its experience. So congrats Amazon: the minute you named your film The Devil’s Mouth, I knew exactly what I’d be doing July 29th, 2026, ready to enjoy that 425 degrees for 18 minutes cheesy goodness that gives me instant heartburn when it’s eaten.
5 friends are on a post college trip to Thailand. Max (Lana Condor) is the take charge forge ahead queen bee, Sara (Kathryn Newton) is the reticent scared and prepared bff, and Greg (Gavin Casalegno), James (Nico Hiraga), and Adrienne (Tommi Rose) just go with Max’s flow or incur her wrath. On a dive through underwater limestone caves, Max convinces guide Wat (Tayme Thapthimthong) to take the harder, deeper route through the cave system. But, as the title gives away, heavy rainstorms have mixed in some salt water with the fresh water caverns. Have any guesses what type of creature can survive in both?
Jeff Wadlow gives us two new spins on the shark attack movie. First is location, usually the easiest change. Filming in Chiang Mai Thailand really helps give director Jeff Wadlow a fresh new place to play with. The Thai caverns are ripe with death traps already: the limestone system is porous and fragile: any hard pressure means those caves are gonna collapse. And it’s not like what’s there already is welcoming: phrases like “pockets of air” and “underwater tunnels” are mentioned early and often, usually involving intricate rock formations only humans can barely squeeze through. And when that’s not working, there’s razor sharp dagger rocks across some of the caves, perfect for nicking the skin and drawing a little blood. The shark is just the straw that stirs this liquid death potion. Specifically a bull shark, which doesn’t need to be big to be scary in here, and uses a ramming technique as well as jumping out from the water to really scare the audience silly as our posse tries to escape the hell labyrinth they’ve lured themselves into.
The 2nd wrinkle is the human mix. The Devil’s Mouth carries extra messaging with the way these 5 interact with each other. Lana Condor and Kathryn Newton use all their passive aggressive energy to shame each other and manipulate their friends into getting their way, especially Lana’s Max. As expected, these little digs reveal character flaws that can be exploited, and eventually lead to death by cave/shark prison. I wish the script was more acid tongued, to really get us under everyone’s loathsome skin to draw blood out of the water before the characters get in it. That would really make the kills hit a little harder and turn the movie into more of a horror film than a survival thriller. But Lana Condor and Kathryn Newton are seasoned movie vets at this point, and sell this toxic relationship honestly as the situation goes from bad to worse, flipping their power dynamics and the group’s sympathies almost sadly grounding the story instead of trying to make it more deranged and unhinged. That helps with the scary survival sequences, but I think misses the overall entertainment value by not dialing it up to Regina George levels of camp.
At least we got a cool vacation out of it. I’m content seeing those caves through a movie lens. But there’s gonna be some adrenaline junkie stoked to book the Krabi province as their next big vacay thrill experience. I hope you listen to your tour guide, and have good friends to rely on in there, otherwise you’re gonna be bull sharked in half, alone and condescendingly mocked by the alpha.