Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Jeff Wadlow
Starring: Kathryn Newton, Lana Condor, Nico Hiraga, Gavin Casalegno, Tommi Rose, Tayme Thapthimthong
We've gotten so many shark movies in the last few years that at this point they've all begun to blur into one big mess of chum. The core issue with this crowded sub-genre is that there simply aren't enough variations on the theme. The best of the recent crop, Dangerous Animals, worked because it gave us a human serial killer who was arguably scarier than the sharks. Every other recent shark movie carries on the tradition set by 2003's Open Water, that of characters becoming stranded in a body of water that unfortunately for them, happens to be infested with man-eaters (watch out or they'll chew you up).
The Devil's Mouth continues this tradition. With the backing of Amazon, it has a bigger budget than most of its rivals, enough to pay the fees of name stars Kathryn Newton and Lana Condor. It's the latest script to be plucked from the dreaded "Black List" of unproduced screenplays, which is itself a massive red flag. To be fair, Aja Gabel and Myung Joh Wesner wrote their script back in 2019 before the current over-saturation of shark thrillers, but its elements are too familiar nonetheless.
It essentially has the same plot as the 2019 sequel 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, with a group of youngsters finding themselves trapped in a remote cave system with a bunch of sharks, or in this case a lone shark. But it's practically indistinguishable from other recent shark flicks like Something in the Water, The Reef: Stalked and Killer Whale, which was basically a shark movie in drag.
A major influence on these movies is the excellent 2022 survival thriller Fall. The Devil's Mouth takes that thriller's idea of two female BFFs discovering that they're actually frenemies in a moment of crisis. Newton's Sara and Condor's Max are best friends, but their relationship is pretty toxic. Max is constantly bossing Sara around, even on a trip to Thailand with their friends Greg (Gavin Casalegno), Adrienne (Tommi Rose) and Max's boyfriend James (Nico Hiraga). Sara begins to question their friendship when she is left behind in the water early on and preyed upon by jellyfish. But far worse is in store when the friends take a swim into a remote cave system known as "The Devil's Mouth." There are a couple of Asians in the cast here, but swimming into a cave known as "The Devil's Mouth" is the very definition of "white people shit."
One of those Asians is Wat, a guide played by The White Lotus's Tayme Thapthimthong. There's a missed opportunity to centre the movie on Wat and call out the idea of wealthy westerners treating the world like their playground, but when the shark turns up Wat bails and leaves these out of their depth Americans on their own.
From this point on there's nothing you haven't seen multiple times before (and probably a half dozen times this year alone), save for the novel way the shark is ultimately defeated, which I have to admit I have definitely never seen before. It's more of the splashing and bickering that defines the modern shark thriller. At least there are multiple characters here, which means we're guaranteed to see a few victims get chewed on, but the movie is so dimly lit we're denied being able to bask in the bloodshed.
Condor is effective at playing the spoilt rich girl while the always likeable Newton is a no-brainer in the sensitive final girl role, but I couldn't help but wonder if it might have been more interesting had the two actresses swapped roles. They try to make the most of a generic script but nothing is saving this damp dud. It's compulsory for the protagonists of these movies to have either a dead boyfriend or parent, and in this case both Sara and Max have dead Dads. But this detail has no relevance to the plot, and neither character seems particularly affected by their loss.
As I glance at the release schedule I see that there are at least two more shark movies being released in the next couple of weeks, and their generic setups don't inspire confidence. It's ironic that filmmakers have spent the last half century trying to cash in on the popularity of Jaws while seemingly overlooking all the elements that made Spielberg's masterpiece work. I'm not expecting any of these movies to be another Jaws, but could we at least get another Jaws 2?
The Devil's Mouth is on Prime Video from July 29th.
