Sometimes a bull shark turns up when you least expect it. 2026's The Devil's Mouth finds a group of college kids stuck in a partially submerged cave system in Thailand with the insatiable shark. The result is a decent survival horror film, particularly effective for its character development.
This is the second new movie this year I've seen starring Lana Condor. It wasn't on purpose, though I liked her a lot in both movies. The other one I saw was Pretty Lethal, the action movie about ballerinas stuck in a hotel. In both movies, she plays a spoiled brat, but I found myself rooting for her in Pretty Lethal. Her position in Devil's Mouth is a little more complicated.
The story primarily revolves around the relationship between her character, Max, and her best friend, Sara (Kathryn Newton). Before the main plot begins, there's a short vignette in which Sara gets left behind, swimming out at sea, by the group, partying in a yacht. Jellyfish gather around Sara and they start stinging her. Luckily, the group circles back and rescues her.
Max had been the only person who knew Sara was in the water but Max had forgotten while getting drunk. Unfortunately, Max is kind of a narcissist and is unable to confront the fact that she made a mistake. The tension is buoyed further by the fact that Max had convinced Sara to move from New York to L.A. with her just before the incident. So Max rapidly accrues a lot of thematic debt early in the movie, the kind of thing that's normally punished severely by the gods of horror movies. Sara, meanwhile, is clearly the film's moral centre and has "Final Girl" written all over her.
Most of the movie is set in the caves and the characters spend almost the entire time swimming, trying to find a way to escape the shark trapped in there with them. Throughout the film, the relationship between Max and Sara is spurred into sudden evolution by the crisis. Minute by minute, the viewer is invited to consider whether or not they want Max to live. She is obnoxious but oddly vulnerable in her unwavering pursuit of a positive self-image.
The movie reminded me a little of Neil Marshall's The Descent, which is a better movie, but The Devil's Mouth isn't bad.
Apparently I've seen Lana Condor play Jubilee in X-Men: Apocolypse, her first role. She's certainly gotten much bustier. It seems she's garnered controversy for not wearing bras or other supportive garments on red carpets.
Why can't women dress in movies the way they do on red carpets?
The Devil's Mouth is available on Amazon Prime.
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