The Devil's Mouth, Amazon's latest shark thriller, drops during Shark Week with a familiar yet slightly different premise: a group of friends trapped in a cave system with a bull shark, but the real tension comes from a toxic friendship. The film, directed by Jeff Wadlow, stars Lana Condor and Kathryn Newton as best friends whose dynamic unravels as the shark attacks.
Plot and Setting
Set in Thailand amid ecosystem-shifting storms, the story follows American college friends on holiday before entering the real world. Lead besties Max (Condor) and Sara (Newton) debate next steps—New York or LA?—until a careless mistake adds friction. Max's docile boyfriend James (Nico Hiraga) and an overly amorous couple (Gavin Casalegno and Tommi Rose) try to play peacemaker, but the group heads into a cave-exploring trip with unresolved drama. Their guide (Tayme Thapthimthong) assures them the freshwater caves are shark-free, but recent disturbances have nudged a bull shark into the system.
Comparison to Other Shark Films
The setup is reminiscent of 2019's 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, where scuba-diving teens battle a shark in underwater Mayan caves. However, The Devil's Mouth adds a toxic friendship element, asking: what if you realize how awful your best friend is just as a bull shark starts picking you off? The film's special ingredient is less grandiose than other recent shark movies like Deep Water (with a plane crash) or Above & Below (with a drug cartel), but potentially more intriguing.
Direction and Performances
Director Jeff Wadlow, known for Truth or Dare and Imaginary, efficiently orchestrates the chaos with enough jolting and gnarly moments to keep viewers engaged. Condor plays the obnoxious, unravelling rich kid well, but Newton steals the show, finding strength to stand up to her friend and take charge. The toxicity of their friendship isn't quite sharp enough to give the film teeth, but it adds more than just body parts to the water.
Critique and Verdict
The Black List script from TV writers Aja Gabel and Myung Joh Wesner doesn't fully thread the needle as a portrait of a disintegrating female friendship, but it adds intermittent tension to a mostly cut-and-paste genre flick. The film includes the now-unavoidable trope of monologue-ready trauma (Max and Sara are part of the "dead parents society"). Despite its flaws, The Devil's Mouth offers solidly entertaining B-movie fare, lifted by the central friendship dynamic. It's now available on Amazon Prime Video.
