© 2020 Twentieth Century Film Corporation(LOS ANGELES) — The much-delayed final 20th Century Fox X-Men film, the thriller The New Mutants, finally comes to theaters today. 

Based on Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod’s 1982 graphic novel of the same name, the movie centers on a group of young enhanced patients of a facility meant to put their mutant capabilities — and their psychological limits — to the test.

The patients/test subjects, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, Game of Thrones veteran Maisie Williams, Henry Zaga, and Stranger Things‘ Charlie Heaton, must band together to survive in the creepy facility, which was filmed at the old Medfield State Hospital in Massachusetts. 

Shooting in the abandoned psychiatric hospital made acting in a creepy movie very easy indeed, the stars tell ABC News.

Heaton set the scene, explaining, “There were creepy stories, I met the groundskeeper on a really rainy day. …And then he told us, ‘Oh, there’s this attic room; someone…hung [sic] themselves in that room.’ Thankfully, we’d already shot in there.” 

He adds, “in terms of shooting…I think it really helps the film feel, you know, authentic at least.”

Williams says, “[Y]ou can really fill this space with, like whatever you want to mentally project onto it, you know, and like there are all these spooky ghost stories going around. And like, I think a lot of women were, like, lobotomized there. And so, like that alone kind of just makes you feel like quite uncomfortable.”

Zaga adds, “The one element that was really present for me was the smell….It just creeps into your soul like this, this smell you can’t fake of, you know, [an] old abandoned place.” However, he allows, “I was so hyped to shoot such an exciting movie that it was hard to feel scared.” 

By Stephen Iervolino
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