In 2026’s The Devil’s Mouth, a group of friends decide to celebrate graduating college by going to Thailand. Things get off to a rocky start when a swimming Sara McKenna (Kathryn Newton) is almost left behind by her irresponsible best friend, Max (Lana Condor), and ends up getting stung by hundreds of jellyfish. Fortunately, Sara’s friends notice that she’s missing and turn the boat around so they can rescue her.
And let me just say this — AGCK! Seriously, the jellyfish scene scared the heck out of me. To me, jellyfish are the most frightening things in the water. Most underwater threats can be avoided just by using some common sense. Jellyfish just tend to come out of nowhere and, from what I understand, being stung by them is incredibly painful. I remember that once, when I was visiting Galveston, they actually had to close the beach because of all the jellyfish that were washing up on the shore. Don’t mess with jellyfish!
That said, you probably shouldn’t mess with a shark either. That’s a lesson that Sara and her friends discover when they go diving at a cave called The Devil’s Mouth. Their guide tells them that, due to flooding, only the beginner’s route is open. Sara’s friends insist on trying the expert’s route. Unfortunately for them, it turns out that a shark has made the cave its home. Soon, dumb college graduates are getting eaten, and Sara and Max find themselves trying to escape from the Devil’s Mouth.
The Devil’s Mouth struggled a bit when it tried to use the whole crisis as a metaphor for Sara and Max’s friendship. Throughout the film, people warn Sara that her codependent relationship with Max is holding her back. In the cave, Sara continually misses her opportunity to escape because she’s helping Max. I felt kind of bad for Max. I mean, Max may have been self-centered, but it’s not like she specifically ordered the shark to enter the cave. The movie’s main message seemed to be that it was worth it to have the shark eat all of her friends if that meant Sara could move on with her life. It seems like it would have been simpler for Sara to just get a new phone.
On the plus side, the shark attacks were enjoyable in their own predictable way, even if the shark was obviously a CGI creation. Since none of the characters are particularly likable or even interesting, you don’t necessarily mind watching them somehow always manage to fall into the water at the exact wrong moment. This is a film made by a shark-movie fan for shark-movie fans, and that’s a good thing. It’s dumb, but it’s entertaining, just like a good shark movie should be.
