The Devil's Mouth

Jeff Wadlow's The Devil's Mouth (2026) strands a group of Thailand-bound twenty-somethings in submerged caves with a shark, and the only real spine of the film is Sara's slow shift from deferential bystander to reluctant survivor, set against Max's controlling nature. The scenery is genuinely gorgeous, and the CGI predator is more convincing than expected, but the murky, underlit cinematography seems engineered to mask the shark's budget rather than build tension. Everywhere else, the writing falters: dialogue reduces everyone but Sara and James to interchangeable scream-fodder, and the PG-13 rating defangs whatever visceral stakes a story built on grief and self-preservation might have carried. Derivative of 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019) and limp through its final stretch, the film proves that pretty scenery and a passable shark cannot substitute for a screenplay without anything new to say about the people it drowns.

This is the kind of horror movie that feels like it was made from a checklist: a group of unknown characters, a creepy location, a monster, some unlucky victims, and the final survivor ready for the last round. This time the formula takes a trip underground, but the journey feels very familiar. WikidataThere are a few spooky moments that actually work. Yes, using darkness, silence, and sudden scares is the easiest trick in the horror toolbox, but when done well, it still gets the job done. The creature effects also look surprisingly good and feel more convincing than expected. Sadly, the decent scares are trapped inside a very basic story that brings little new to the genre.A simple, predictable creature feature that might work for a casual horror night, but it is mostly a case of "seen this monster, crawled through this cave."