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The New Mutants

After more than two years of postponed release dates, The New Mutants finally arrives in cinemas. Re-shoots, schedule clashes with other films, Disney's purchase of 20th Century Fox and covid-related cinema closures all contributed to the limbo the film found itself in. So was the wait worth it? I'd say sure. It's no world beater but it has a neatly contained story with some creepy elements (mainly down to the work of DOP, Peter Deming, whose first feature was Evil Dead 2) and nicely pitched performances. Let's have a roll call of these younglings, then. The first credit (though not the protagonist) is Maisie Williams as Rahne Sinclair [WOLFSBANE]. Anya Taylor-Joy plays Illyana Rasputin [MAGIK]. The real lead is Blu Hunt, who plays Danielle Moonstar [MIRAGE]. Charlie Heaton plays Sam Guthrie [CANNONBALL] and Henry Zaga plays Roberto da Costa [SUNSPOT]. And aside from Alice Braga as their doctor/monitor, that's about it for the cast. They all bounce off each other well and Taylor-Joy is better here than I've seen her before but Hunt in the lead is a little damp, not quite up to the energy level of the others.

The New Mutants is basically a haunted house thriller where the ghosts are mutation related, therefore explicable yet very dangerous. There's a clear through-line which follows Moonstar and her need to overcome a pretty bloody intransigent obstacle (keep an ear out for her narration at the start and an eye on her necklace thereafter). Other thematic pincushions of keeping control, sticking together and choosing the correct side of your character to 'feed' are ritually pricked. And it seems like they made Braga's doctor the daughter of a vet, just so she could spew forth some strangled analogies about baby rattlesnakes and some such.

There is a honking great foreshadowing of a character watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer at one point. Ooooh, hang on! Does this mean...? Yep, there may be some wolf-girl-on-bear-girl action at some stage. In fact, this relationship is quite sweet, if you can get past the bestiality aspect, and I'm sure you can. Each of the five have a moment to shine where their backstories are winkled out. Rasputin's story is bleak shit and serves up the scariest manifestations, partly thanks to Marilyn Manson's voice work. Speaking of Rasputin, there's a long shot near the end of the film where the five mutants walk off camera and Taylor-Joy lingers, taking her time to get out of frame. I wonder if she's trying an old Steve McQueen trick here, a way of hogging a fraction more screen time.

It seems with Disney's acquisition of Fox, there won't be any more of these new mutant films, at least not with the cast or 'creatives', namely director and co-writer Josh Boone and co-writer Knate Lee. Shame if so, as this was a happy surprise. A 'Marvel' film with a whiff of paranoid grunge horror to it. They don't come along every day.

See also:

For a similar setting, there aren't many, actually ANY, better films than One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) directed by Milos Forman. The British TV series, Misfits (2009-2013), created by Howard Overman, has an echo of young folk discovering their 'specialties'.

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