Clayface Review

Clayface is the third film in the DCU and the most unexpected film so far due to it being an origins story about a Batman villain.

Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is a rising star in Coast City, an actor who had worked his way out of Gotham City’s roughest district. His acting career reaches a high when he gets an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. However, when he returns to Gotham City to celebrate, he sleeps with the girlfriend of the notorious gangster Markos Szabo (David Dencik), leading to the actor having his face cut up as a punishment. In desperation, Matt turns to Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), a nanotech scientist, and her revolutionary technology to repair the damage to Matt’s face, but the nanobots become volatile due to his mood and anger at the injustices he suffered.

I will acknowledge DC Studios is daring to be different. Their projects have felt less homogeneous than their rivals at Marvel. Clayface does stand out for being different: it was a body horror and a crime revenge story. It was a comic book film that earned an 18 rating in the UK for its gory content: a deserved rating because of the gory content in the first act.

Clayface was a cinematic throwback; it felt more like comic book-inspired movies of the early 1990s, specifically Darkman and The Crow. It was far removed from Superman battling a giant kaiju or Supergirl chasing after a space pirate. It was a grizzly film with a deliberately smaller scale that was focused on the Gotham underworld. Gotham was a corrupt hellhole, which was in keeping with its portrayal in Batman Begins and The Batman. In Clayface’s case, it just happened to star a shapeshifter who could turn his arms into weapons, a bit like the T1000.

Clayface had horror credentials behind the camera. It was directed by James Watkins, the man behind Eden Lake and the remake of Speak No Evil, and horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan, who co-wrote the screenplay. Clayface was gory with its horrific deaths whilst Mark was still learning to use his newfound powers. The scenes that made me wince were when surgery was performed on Matt, with the results making him look like The Punisher villain Jigsaw, and the moment when Mark had to cut skin growing over his eye. The most unsettling death was one of the least gory because it was a horrific concept. Clayface was made on a budget of $30 million, which was much lower than most comic book films. It was a lower-risk endeavour, but it was clear that the filmmakers had to be budget-conscious since it avoided showing too many transformations early in the film.

Matt Hagen was like Peyton Westlake and Eric Draven because he was a wronged man who developed superpowers and went on a vengeance-killing spree. He was an anti-hero, or at least a villain, since he was a character who lost everything and the people who betrayed him profited from his downfall. Matt’s character arc was like Arthur Fleck’s in Joker, since he was pushed over the edge by Gotham, and his dark side came out. Matt even had a moment like Norman Osborn and Gollum in Spider-Man and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers since they all argued with their alter egos. Like Arthur Fleck, Matt developed a romantic attachment with one of the few people who wanted to be close to him.

Clayface felt detached from the rest of the DCU. There were no references to other projects in the DCU; the world looked more grounded and violent than the previous films, and it was self-contained. This added to the feeling that it was like a pre-MCU movie because many of them were set in their own universes. Supergirl attempted a similar trick since it was set in the far reaches of space.

Whilst Clayface lifted a lot from classic films, it shared an issue with the remake of The Crow: the plot took its time to get going. Clayface spent a long time with Matt looking for his cure and dealing with his changing body. It was at the halfway point when Matt realised who the obviously shifty people really were, and he went out on his quest for vengeance. The film suffered from inconsistent pace because the first half moved slowly and the second half was rapid. The film also suffered from a case of tell don’t show since it was a smear campaign against Matt where Szabo was able to dig up dirt on the actor. Yet, before Matt was attacked, he was shown to be a likeable man who was a little bashful. The worst thing Matt did was think with his penis. When Matt’s dark side showed, it was because of all his anger and grievances, and the nanobots amplified it.

Clayface was another 2026 Warner Bros. release to have been filmed in the UK (the others being Wuthering Heights, Supergirl, Practical Magic 2 and Digger). Clayface made it obvious through its casting since it had recognisable actors in the form of Eddie Marsan and Rob Brydon. Brydon was the most notable since he’s only really known in the UK. It’s assuming that Liverpool joins Glasgow as a stand-in for Gotham City.

Clayface was an interesting experiment as a mainstream comic book, and its attempt to be different was appreciated. It was a solid mix of comic book movie, revenge tale and mainstream horror.