325, The Devil's Mouth

Who doesn't love a good shark film, and it's fair to say the movie industry does like to use these apex predators as a regular protagonist in many a repetitive outing.

Unlike Jaws or the Meg - The Devil's Mouth focusses on a standard issue Bull Shark as the hunter, trapped inside a fresh water network of caves (one of which is called The Devils Mouth) who comes face to face with five, early 20'ish gorgeous friends who on ego's and smiles, manage to convince a tour guide to take them through an intense path of sunken caverns as they all partake in a Summer of fun in Thailand before settling down into adult life.

The movie starts innocently enough - the 3 girl / 2 guy combo seem to have it all with yacht trips and bottomless booze fuelled excursions until one of them gets left behind in open water, only to get attacked by a bloom of Jellyfish and that's where the 'trust' issues start as although saved this time around - cracks in the group start to show early on.

From the outset - once they get into the caves, our overly eager, intrepid, yet slightly deluded main cast - along with the tour guide, who for me was the only really recognisable face (Tayme Thapthimthong - White Lotus / John Rambo) and a lone diver are the only real cast and just like a teen slasher horror, it's just a case of picking them off one by one until either someone gets out - or they all perish.

The main cast - who are probably more recognisable to a slightly younger audience than myself do relatively well in this, working in a intensely claustrophobic environment for most of the film which adds an real edgy element to the hunt as the shark itself gets very little screen time.

It has a similar edge of the seat style anxiety to The Shallows (Blake Lively - 2016), albeit no where near as good overall and our leading ladies (the males are pretty useless to be fair!) flip from sheer fear to almost G.I Joe like intensity in the blink of an eye - then back to scream queen once more.

The Shark special effects are okay - nothing really ground-breaking to be honest, but there are lots of glancing shots and thrashing about from around 35 minutes in, with the Shark fully making a full appearance around 43 minutes into this 100 minute feature.

They have tried to get some depth into the characters - the lead (Sara) played by Kathryn Newton (Cassie Lang in Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania & soon to be appearing in Avengers: Doomsday) has flashback & dream sequences where she questions her own loyalty to her 'so called' friend group is mixed with the selfishness and Queen Bee vibes of her bestie Max, (played by Lana Condor - in nothing I have seen) to try and build momentum but it's all pretty weak and as they all get picked off one by one, no one seems to remain very upset for very long.

It's quite easy to predict who dies and who survives - I think I even got the death order correct as well as how it ends - so it's relatively predictable too.

It's not the best Shark film out there by a long margin.  Jaws will remain in critics hearts as the original (and the best) within this genre but with Shark movies making the transition from A-List Blockbuster (Meg / Deep Blue Sea) to cheesy B-Movie (Sharknado & others) it's a hard one to call.  Yes, this is better than those - but it's not quite up to the standard of The Shallows, The Reef, 47 Meters Down etc that do amp up the realism, and do it very well.

Fancy watching the Trailer?  Click Below...........