Released: 22nd October
Seen: 8th November
Every so often, the superhero genre tries something new, something to try and keep it from being essentially a spin on the standard formula. One of the things they don’t do as often as they probably should is try to blend the superhero genre with the horror genre, though when they do try it can at least be interesting. When Brightburn did it, you got a wild alt-world version of Superman that asked “Hey, what if Ma and Pa Kent couldn’t actually save Clark at all”. When Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness did it, we effectively got Marvel’s take on Evil Dead that explored how grief could harm people around you (admittedly not as well as WandaVision explored that same idea but hey, it was still fun). Finally, when Morbius did it, you understood why villains shouldn’t get stand-alone movies. If nothing else, taking the superhero genre and throwing in some horror elements is something that’s at least interesting and, in the case of Clayface, can lead to a genuinely brilliant take on a classic subgenre.
Clayface follows Oscar-Nominated actor Matt Hagan (Tom Rhys Harries) who seems to have everything going for him. He has his looks, his pretty face and doesn’t underestimate the importance of body language, in fact, he uses that body language to basically bed any woman he wants. Sadly, one woman he beds is Mia Torrez (Joana Ribeiro) and she just happens to be a mafia boss’s girlfriend.
Specifically, she’s the girlfriend of Markos Szabo (David Dencik) who doesn’t take kindly to people sleeping with his woman and so he decides to absolutely destroy Matt’s pretty face so badly that attempting to repair it and seek justice through the legal system will cost Matt all his money, his management and eventually his career. Desperate, Matt finds out about a scientist named Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) who has developed a nanotechnology that she hopes will be able to help heal people who have degenerative disorders, however her funding’s been cut and she might not be able to continue so Matt volunteers to be her new test subject but, shocker, something goes horribly wrong and now Matt’s body is doing strange things it absolutely shouldn’t be able to do… things Matt might be able to use to get his revenge on those who ruined his life.
A DC body horror film is definitely not something that you expect to turn out that well, the body horror genre is such a hard subgenre of horror to get right and DC films have been a bit of a hit or miss lately, so combining those two is a big risk. Fortunately, Clayface has the amazing script skills of Mike Flanagan and the director James Watkins (Speak No Evil and Eden Lake) so we probably shouldn’t have worried too much about it. They manage to create a fascinating dark origin story for one of Batman’s greatest villains that actually makes the character more interesting and isn’t just taking a Martin Scorsese film and throwing some clown makeup on it (Hi Joker, you aged horribly). They really give us plenty of time to not only know Matt Hagan as a character but genuinely fall in love with him, enjoy him as a person and realise how he’s charmed this little world before making our hearts break (and our stomachs churn) as he’s slowly destroyed over the course of the film. Sure there’s a lot of that glorious gross visceral imagery that the body horror subgenre is known for, but it blends it with a compelling tale of betrayal and revenge that really gives Clayface a lot of depth as a villain.
It’s also impressive that Clayface does not hold back. For a mainline entry in the DC universe with a character who we can probably assume will return at some point, they lean all the way into the R rating with the sex, swearing and shocking violence. It says a lot that this fits so well with the world of Batman but you could pull out all the DC details and Clayface would still work just as well if it was about some generic actor who got attacked and lived in the slums of not-Gotham. Its power works beyond the brand of Batman as just a generally great body horror film with some of the most unnerving scenes I’ve seen in the genre for a while. The eyelid scene featured in the trailer is so much more intense in the film, making for some teeth-gnawing viewing, and it’s probably one of the tamer body-horror moments this film has to offer.
Clayface also relies heavily on practical effects that make this feel as visceral as possible, and whenever there’s CGI, it’s either for the literally impossible or for cleanup; it all looks absolutely amazing and lets the film pull off some truly inventive visual trickery. It also helps that the performers are working their asses off to sell this, you can feel their terror or, in the case of our lead, his pain in every single frame. Really, this is one of those lead performances that just does most of the work; Tom Rhys Harries manages to make Matt a lovable character, then a sympathetic one and then just slowly turns him into something evil and irredeemable who pushes things too far while still being as compelling as you could hope such a character could be. There are so many little moments that work because of how the characters sell them, even if the effect looks a little silly it works because these performers make it feel as real as humanly possible.
Clayface is honestly one of the bigger surprises of the year, showing that the superhero genre can actually handle dark, serious topics without feeling like it’s trying too hard. It strays from the standard action-adventure that the superhero genre is known for and instead creates a gloriously gripping tale that not only feels like it fits with the source material but really plays well in the body horror genre. Honestly, this would be a great entry point into the body horror subgenre for those who have been curious about it but don’t know how they could handle this very dark and disturbing kind of film. Clayface just moulds itself perfectly into what it needs to be to make the biggest impact, easily one of the best things DC has pulled out in a while.
