'The New Mutants' Trailer Is More Horror Than Superhero

I’m not fully on board with those who argue we’re hitting a point of superhero fatigue. In general, I enjoy them and look forward to the next chapter. Just over the next two weeks we get Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League, though I’m more concerned (or at least I have more questions) about the latter than the former. Still, it’s hard to get too excited when there’s yet another superhero joint. Especially The New Mutants, mostly because I’m admittedly not hugely familiar with the title (though I love creator Chris Claremont), and the last Fox X-Men movie was so lackluster. But the first trailer is here, and I’m definitely changing my tune.

Of course there’s a slow, maudlin cover of a well-known pop song, because Jesus Christ, always. (This time, it’s Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall.”) That one fact aside, The New Mutants looks all kinds of rad.

First off, it has a strong young cast with Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones), Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Split), and Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things). And I’m always down to see Alice Braga show up.

Second, it skews way, way into horror territory. We’ve got flickering lights, creepy doctors performing nefarious experiments on kids, an eerie psych hospital, and weird shit pushing through walls. It’s enough to make your skin crawl. Even the logo is straight up horror fare. I’m game.

At first this horror turn surprised me. Director Josh Boone is best known for helming the teen-weepie The Fault in Our Stars, which doesn’t exactly make you think things that go bump in the night. But he’s also attached to roughly 5000 upcoming Stephen King adaptions, so it’s easy to see where his heart lies. And he did promise EW that The New Mutants would be “a full-fledged horror movie set within the X-Men universe.” So that’s promising, and if nothing else, this looks to be something different from our usual superhero romp.

The official basically lays out what we see in this trailer:

Held in a secret facility against their will, five new mutants have to battle the dangers of their powers, as well as the sins of their past. They aren’t out to save the world — they’re just trying to save themselves.

Like I said, after watching this trailer, I’m way, way more interested in The New Mutants than I was before. It’s also fitting the trailer dropped today, Friday the 13th, because the film opens on Friday, April 13th, 2018. It’s almost like they planned it that way.