Charlie Heaton Says The New Mutants Will Be “Full-fledged Horror”

A little variety of mood and tone is essential to keep the comic book movie genre alive. DC Entertainment has attempted to provide a grittier, more realistic approach to superheroes on screen, with mixed results, but Fox seems to have finally figured it out with its raunchy comedy Deadpool and its violent Western-style Logan.

The studio is hoping to add even more texture to its palette by bringing horror into the world of superhero movies, and not just a sprinkling of bumps and frights, but “full-fledged horror,” according to Charlie Heaton, who will play Sam Guthrie, aka Cannonball, in The New Mutants:

It’s basically about these mutants in a facility for damaged mutants. It’s a story about these characters coming to grips with who they are and it’s a horror ‘X-Men’ movie, which we haven’t seen before. I feel like, for an ‘X-Men’ movie, yeah, I think they’re going full-fledged horror. Without saying too much — I really don’t want to give away too much what it’s about, it’s very under wraps — but it is, in terms of anything we’ve seen in the ‘X-Men’ world, it definitely is a horror film. It’s scarier than anything we’ve seen in that genre.

The New Mutants was directed by Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars), from a script he co-wrote with Knate Lee. The movie stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Illyana Rasputin, aka Magik; Maisie Williams as Rahne Sinclair, aka Wolfsbane; Henry Zaga as Roberto da Costa, aka Sunspot; Blu Hunt as Danielle Moonstar, aka Mirage; and Alice Braga as Cecilia Reyes.

The movie was originally slated to open on April 13th, but the release was pushed back to August 2nd to accommodate re-shoots.