When the DC Studios film Clayface begins, Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is a young, talented actor with incredible cheekbones and an Oscar nomination — in short, he’s feeling invincible. This leads him to the poor choice of a one-night stand with Mia (Joana Ribeiro), who’s technically the girlfriend of ruthless Gotham crime boss Markos Szabo (David Dencik). Szabo doesn’t like sharing his toys, and so he decides to teach Matt a lesson by carving up his face. (A horrific scene that immediately earns this movie its R rating.)
Matt loses his face and his career — essentially, his entire life. Desperate for help, he turns to scientist Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), whose work with some very science-y-sounding science might be able to reverse his scarring. Turns out, the science works, but there are some side effects, including parts of Matt’s face oozing around at the worst possible moments. So as his dreams of returning to his old life fade, his emerging ability to take on the faces of others opens up a new path for him: vengeance.
The first half of Clayface stands out for the way director James Watkins uses this scenario to create some deeply gruesome horror scenarios, including Matt’s initial disfigurement, graphic scenes of surgery, and then unpleasant situations like having to snip his own eyelids open after they get a little melty.
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Then, when Matt begins to get a stronger grip on his abilities, things kick into a whole new gear, with some fantastic sequences that play beautifully with the idea of a shapeshifter seeking revenge. How much is practically executed versus achieved with some help from CGI is unclear (DC Studios head James Gunn has said the movie uses a lot of practical effects). But the fact that you can’t immediately tell if computers were involved with certain stunts makes it feel like a true magic trick.
Clayface doesn’t bother with any sort of training montage, Matt instead discovering his new abilities in the heat of the moment. This ends up being a smart choice, because it confirms that Matt didn’t choose for any of this to happen to him; he’s simply adapting to his new circumstances. This also goes a long way towards keeping Matt in a vaguely relatable place even as he tips over into darker behavior; the script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini (based on a story by Flanagan) actually does a nice job of balancing the audience’s sympathies with the reality of his actions.
It all ends up feeling pretty surface-level, though, because prior to his mutilation, all we really understand about Matt as a character is that he’s lost his grip on his authentic self, thanks to his constant transformation as an actor. That of course becomes his external reality once the full effect of Caitlin’s science has set in, but Matt embracing his new existence is the closest thing the character has to an arc.
Clayface (Warner Bros.)
Tom Rhys Harries, a relative unknown whose credits include a small part in Guy Ritchie’s 2019 movie The Gentlemen and the 2017 direct-to-video prequel Dragonheart: Battle for the Heartfire, handles all the demands of the role well, from Matt’s smug grin of success to the broken torment he later experiences. Naomi Ackie, as both plot device and love interest, gives him plenty to play off, even if her character feels largely defined by the men in her life (Max Minghella plays her fiancé, who’s also a Gotham City homicide detective).
On its own merits as a standalone horror movie about a guy becoming a mud monster, Clayface works pretty well. But its existence doesn’t quite mesh into the purported master plan James Gunn has for DC Studios, since it has even less connection to the overall DC universe than Lanterns — it’s an origin story featuring no familiar heroes, its Gotham setting the only thing that establishes its roots in the IP.
Tonally, this movie fits nicely with Matt Reeves’ current take on the Batman universe, and Reeves is listed as an executive producer, so maybe there are plans to integrate the character down the line. But nothing’s been announced yet on that front — so, why are we getting a big-screen origin story for one of Batman’s mid-tier villains?
The answer seems to be that Flanagan has been interested in doing a Clayface movie since at least 2021, and per a 2024 interview with Gunn, Gunn was impressed by the quality of Flanagan’s pitch. But it also serves as an intriguing proof of concept that DC Studios can feature both stand-alone genre one-offs as well as whatever large-scale narrative it’s developing across the other movies and TV shows in this universe.
Clayface is certainly the scariest, freakiest movie ever made based on a DC Comics property (insert your own jokes here about Gene Hackman’s Superman wig). But what’s most intriguing about it is that if it’s successful, it might not own that status forever.
Clayface oozes into theaters on Friday, October 23rd. Check out the latest trailer below.