REVIEW: “The Devil’s Mouth”
Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios
If 2026 has proved anything, it’s that the sharksploitation genre still has plenty of bite left in it. There will always be room for a big, dumb shark movie that knows exactly what it is. Not every film in this space has to be Jaws. Sometimes all a movie needs is a simple survival hook, a convincing monster, a few gruesomely creative attacks, and enough underwater mayhem to keep audiences engaged. That is what makes The Devil’s Mouth so frustrating. It has the kind of premise that should deliver B-movie fun, but the final product is much dumber than it is fun.
The story follows a group of friends who have recently graduated from college and are taking one last summer vacation to Thailand before real life and adulting catch up with them. That setup should give the movie an easy emotional charge, and this group of twentysomethings should feel like a relatable bunch. Instead, the script reduces them to archetypes: the self-appointed leader (Lana Condor), the flirt (Tommi Rose), the reliable guy (Nico Hiraga), the himbo (Gavin Casalegno) and the quiet but resourceful one (Kathryn Newton), and seems to think the idea that “they have their whole lives in front of them” is enough to serve as character motivation. It’s not. As a result, these characters feel less like people and more like future victims waiting to be crossed off the list.
Their tropical getaway turns deadly when the group tours a maze of underwater caves, including one ominous formation called “The Devil’s Mouth.” Once they’re deep inside, they discover that recent heavy rains in the area have caused the surrounding ocean to rise, unexpectedly dumping a bull shark into the same cave system. On paper, that’s a terrific setup: tight spaces, dark water, and a vicious predator where no predator should be. In the right hands, it could have been pulpy, tense, ridiculous fun. Instead, director Jeff Wadlow somehow turns it into a lifeless slog.
The first major problem is the shark itself. A great movie monster doesn’t need to look perfect, but it does need to feel real, and this shark never does. The CGI used to render it leaves it looking flat, weightless, and unfinished. As if the creature were dropped into the movie after the fact, instead of being built into the action from the start. For a shark thriller, that is more than a minor flaw; it weakens the whole movie, because the central threat never feels like it’s actually sharing the same space with the actors.
Even stranger, the shark doesn’t behave like an actual shark. It behaves more like a killer out of a slasher movie. Lurking in the shadows, stalking its victims, even seeming to react when the characters taunt it, as though it actually hears what they’re saying. That kind of silliness can work in a creature feature, but only if the attacks deliver thrills, and here they don’t. In a movie built around a killer shark, the attacks should be the main event. Instead, there’s no real suspense or cleverness in the staging and no real impact in the kills. They all just feel weirdly toothless. Worse, most of the deaths happen because the characters make spectacularly bad decisions.
And boy, do these people make some spectacularly bad decisions.
That’s where the screenplay becomes one of the movie’s biggest problems. It keeps forcing reasonably smart people into the dumbest possible decisions, not because those choices reveal anything about their characters, but because the movie needs another victim. Newton comes across as the sharpest of the group, though that’s faint praise given that the rest of the characters are so thinly written and even her character, Sara, makes decisions that are hard to defend. Condor draws the short straw with Max, a character who swings from annoyingly self-absorbed to needlessly harsh whenever the plot needs extra conflict. Worse, the movie eventually wants us to be worried about Max’s fate, but that emotional investment hasn’t come anywhere close to being earned.
Newton and Condor have both brought real charm and presence to stronger projects, and they still manage to hold attention here when the movie lets them. The problem is that Wadlow’s direction and the clunky script keep working against them. Every other character feels severely underwritten, which makes them feel less like people and more like future shark bait. Worse, the script often telegraphs who the next victim will be through on-the-nose, clumsy dialogue, so the suspense disappears before the attacks even start.
The visuals don’t help either. The cinematography is so dark and muddy that much of the underwater action becomes hard to follow. Maybe the murkiness is meant to hide the subpar CGI shark. Or maybe the filmmakers simply struggled to shoot the cave scenes clearly. Either way, a movie about people being hunted through underwater caves should not leave viewers squinting to figure out what just happened. Darkness can create fear, but only if the audience can actually make out the danger.
This whole movie is a real missed opportunity. Again, the setup is packed with natural tension: cramped spaces, few exits, rising stakes, and a killer predator on the loose. Those ingredients should make the movie feel tense and gripping almost by default. A stronger version could have turned every tunnel into a threat and every movement in the water a warning. Instead, Wadlow drains the danger from nearly every scene, and what should be a breathless survival thriller becomes strangely dull.
What makes the disappointment sting even more is that shark movies don’t need to be elegant to work. Some are genuinely good, some are ridiculous in the best possible way. The Devil’s Mouth is neither. It isn’t scary enough to thrill, playful enough to enjoy, or strange enough to stand out. It has everything it needs to take a big bite out of the sharksploitation genre, but instead it barely leaves a lasting mark.
The Devil’s Mouth is currently available to stream on Prime Video.