August 2026

The Devil’s Mouth (2026)

No need for a deep dive into The Devil’s Mouth, there’s not much to see.

Five easily forgotten college friends take a break from soaking up Thailand’s breathtaking scenery to follow a guide into a series of partially submerged caves currently inhabited by a very hungry shark.

I smell a bad Yelp review.

Blonde beauty Sara (Kathryn Newton) is miffed at her friend Max (Lana Condor) for being an irresponsible party princess. Max wanders off at one point, forgetting to tell anyone that Sara is swimming and not on the boat.

So poor Sara watches her pals sail off into the sunset while she’s mugged by a gang of rogue jellyfish! The kids recover and retrieve her, but she’s rightfully pissed at Max, even though the latter is paying for the trip.

This is director Jeff Wadlow’s only attempt at character development, so please take note.

Somehow this passel of feuding tourists end up underground, snorkeling their lungs out in search of an exit soon after their guide detects the unmistakable signs of a maneater in the house: a pool of fresh blood and a scuba mask that’s got two huge tooth holes in the face.

The cave decor is sufficiently rendered as to produce a measure of anxiety that is desperately needed in The Devil’s Mouth.

The shark, clearly some sort of prodigy, thrives in a mixture of salt and fresh water and instantly adapts to hunting prey in a cave, ramming the limestone to knock trembling swimmers into his watering holes.

It can also leap and jump like a porpoise, pivot its head, and swim backwards.

Not to give away too much plot, but after watching a ravenous predator make a picnic out of a half-dozen humans in less than 24 hours, and continue to hammer away at the geology trying to get Max and Sara into its belly, one can only conclude that the shark has a severe eating disorder.

In any case, the size and scale of the shark fluctuates along with viewer interest. In The Devil’s Mouth, entertainment is chiefly derived from watching hapless nitwits get chewed upon, but there’s nothing noteworthy happening (apart from magic shark antics) to keep us afloat or awake.

We’ve been on this vacation. Bring a couple good books.

Horror Castle (1963)

Get used to the sight of Mary Hunter (Rossana Podesta) wandering the grounds of a gloomy castle in a blue nightgown, accompanied by a heavy handed James Bond-style jazz score that erupts whether the scene calls for embellishment or not.

Welcome to Horror Castle, aka The Virgin of Nuremberg, directed by versatile veteran Antonio Margheriti (Castle of Blood, The Long Hair of Death, Cannibal Apocalypse).

Mary, the new bride of Max Hunter (Georges Riviere), moves into his family’s ancestral estate in Germany, an imposing edifice loaded with bad juju, thanks to the legacy of Max’s maniac ancestor, The Punisher, who tortured local girls he suspected of sinful behavior.

In straight Rebecca fashion, Max has business elsewhere for much of the movie, leaving Mary in the care of Erich (Christopher Lee) a scarred and taciturn family retainer, and Martha (Laura Nucci) the morose, stoned-faced housekeeper.

If you’re one of those folks that can’t get enough gothic atmosphere and macabre accoutrements, Horror Castle is littered with skulls, secret passages, and vintage torture devices that are still kept in fine working order.

It’s a bit of a stretch, but Marheriti tries to make a case for the monster of the house, a sadistic freak skulking about in executioner garb (Mirko Valentin) being a sympathetic character, since he was himself disfigured by fiendish Nazi surgeons to resemble a skull.

However, eliciting pity for a guy that stuffs a woman into an Iron Maiden, and torments another with a hungry rat loosed on her face is a mighty tall order.

Maybe next time.

I wish Horror Castle rated a definitive restoration, because the version I saw had been heavily edited and dubbed in English to the point of absurdity. Even so, it’s a tingly tour in a creepy ass location, with the enchanting Rossana Podesta guiding us by candlelight.

Trust me, there are worse ways to spend a dark and stormy night.

If you can handle the rough edges of budget constraints and decaying filmstock, Horror Castle sustains an eerie charm, with all its roads leading straight to the torture chamber.

Watch your step!

The Barge People (2018)

London filmmaker Charlie Steeds is earning a reputation as a British Roger Corman, grinding out low budget shockers with machine-like efficiency, as we saw in Freeze, his community theater version of a doomed polar expedition.

In The Barge People, Steeds crams scraps and trimmings from Wrong Turn, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Humanoids From the Deep, and The Hills Have Eyes into a Turducken tale of hungry amphibian mutants living in the nasty waters of England’s canal boat system.

Kat (Kate Davies-Speak) and her sweetheart Mark (Mark McKirdy) rent a canal boat for a bucolic weekend with her sister Sophie (Natalie Martens) and toffy-nosed boyfriend Ben (Matt Swales).

It doesn’t take long for snobby Ben to rub everyone the wrong way, including a feral couple living on their own barge that gets sideswiped thanks to Ben’s nonexistent navigation skills.

Before we can settle into a rousing chorus of Dumb City Kids vs Rural Ruffians, a pack of scaly predators board the tiny ship and start gnawing away on everybody in sight.

This forces Kat to strike up an uneasy alliance with Jade (Makenna Guyler), one of the boat invaders, to rescue Mark from captivity, that’s undermined by their mutual distrust of each other’s social class.

“I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth,” Jade sneers. “You’re on your own.”

When confronted with a boatload of hostile monsters, Ben somewhat whimsically offers to buy them off with a deposit of $5,000 pounds into their bank account.

Ben didn’t get the assignment.

Once again, Steeds manages to offset his lack of funds with a commitment to create something reasonably fresh, and the timeless wonder of the English countryside helps considerably.

The Barge People features vegetarian gore, with not much meat to go with all the sauce, but serves as another reminder that no one should ever go anywhere for a relaxing weekend, other than back to bed.

Stay at home and read a book. You’ll live longer.