After a few years of corporate complications, The New Mutants was finally released to movie theaters — ironically during the pandemic when studios were holding back distribution of their motion-pictures. When I first saw the movie trailers a few years back, I was instantly intrigued. Twentieth Century Fox, however, kept pushing back the release date, and then Disney’s purchase of the Fox studio caused yet another delay.
Five young mutants, just discovering their abilities while held in a secret facility against their will, fight to escape their past sins and save themselves. The most recent resident, Dani Moonstar, has yet to discover her superpower but the solution to the mystery is what supernatural forces are making the hospital into a haunted house.
Based on a series of comic books published by Marvel, and set in the world of X-Men, this movie was meant to tie-in with the present-day X-Men movies produced by Fox. Regrettably, while this movie was produced with a low budget (a primary cast of six and TV budget special effects), the only takeaway is verification that Fox cannot produce good superhero movies — but Fox does know how to produce a good horror movie.
A hybrid of the two genres, The New Mutants is a fun film if you can get back the slow first half — with a climactic battle of our inner demons… literally.
