The pitch was perfect: The Breakfast Club meets The Shining.

But it seems neither film was studied to see how it worked.

The New Mutants is a mess, never quite sure what it wants to do or who it wants to focus on.

It has a beginning - a teen girl (Blu Hunt) is transferred to a creepy facility where she meets four teens (Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton and Henry Zaga) with special abilities.

And it has an end - a finale fight featuring questionable CGI.

But the middle is an endurance test in boredom, making 97 minutes feel much longer.

That this much-delayed death rattle of 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise has been granted a cinema release rather than snuck out on streaming is perplexing, as it feels very first draft.

It's not the fault of the young cast (Taylor-Joy being the most entertaining), but they're given so little to do and far too much of their interaction feels like aimless small talk.

Trying to balance horror, superpowers and young adult content, director Josh Boone is way out of his depth.

Which is ironic, because the teens' rec room TV shows an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, a show which on a weekly basis - in half the time and a fraction of the budget - combined teen angst, romance, superpowers and horror in a way The New Mutants could only dream of.