You’ll be forgiven for not realizing The New Mutants is an X-Men movie. Everything about the trailer is drenched in horror, and mutant abilities are few and far between. It just doesn’t look like a superhero movie, but changing up genre standards has become the status quo for X-Men’s expanding universe.
With the movie series dating back to 2000 and a cast shift already underway in the main films, the recent standalone movies have been taking chances in order to stay fresh. Deadpool was as much a raunchy comedy as an origin story, and Logan sent off Hugh Jackman in a redemptive western. Both were massively successful, but neither of those were as significant a departure as The New Mutants’ promised horror.
And to make matters even weirder, they didn’t even bring in a horror veteran to give the experiment some security. They got romance guy Josh Boone to write and direct, whose biggest credit to date is helming The Fault in Our Stars. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a fine movie; it’s just not the natural lead-up to a horror film that cites One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as an influence.
Boone noted in an interview with IGN that he wanted The New Mutants to be performance driven, and at least in that regard they took few chances. Young, proven talents like Anya Taylor-Joy and Maisie Williams are playing the mutants, so it seems unlikely that this will be a lambs led to the slaughter scenario. They have special abilities, after all, so even when the horror ramps up, they should be able to defend themselves. That could allow the film to go deep into terrifying scenarios or it could undermine the film’s tension. You see why this is a strange genre to drop superheros into?
No matter how it turns out, at least it’s refreshing to see the X-Men series continue to push in new directions. They’ve been making these experiments work, so maybe The New Mutants can catch fans off guard once again.
The New Mutants is directed by Josh Boone and stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Maisie Williams, and Charlie Heaton. It will be released in the U.K. on April 11th, 2018 and in the U.S. on April 13th, 2018. For international release dates, click here.
Do you think the X-Men series can successfully incorporate horror? Let us know in the comments!
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