Comic book “villain” movies have a mixed track record, to say the least. DC Studios’ Clayface looks to set that record straight.
Directed by James Watkins with a story by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, Clayface is the origin story of how Hollywood star Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) turns into the titular villain. Unlike so many comic book villain movies, Clayface isn’t interested in making Matt an antihero you can root for.
As a rising Hollywood actor in the wake of his first Oscar nomination, everything is looking up for Hagen. That changes when his decision to hook up with the girlfriend of mob boss Markos Szabo (David Dencik) leads to him being brutally assaulted and disfigured in the face.
Yes, it certainly seems like you’re meant to sympathize with Matt as he struggles with losing everything and seeks an experimental cure using nanites to regain his former looks.
What Matt chooses to do with that tragedy, however, leads to a deadly spree of revenge that melds the body horror genre with a Gotham crime story. If you want a comparison, it’s Cronenberg meets Batman: The Animated Series.
Harries gives a simultaneously charismatic and chilling performance as Hagen as you watch him go from victim to perpetrator. At first terrified by his new healing and shape-shifting powers from the nanites, he eventually unleashes them to seek his revenge on those who’ve wronged him.
Clayface sets a new standard for the comic book villain movie because it actually lets its villain be evil. This shouldn’t be such a shock, yet somehow is.
If you pay attention, it’s implied Matt isn’t the golden boy he’s portrayed to be at the beginning, which makes his descent all the more fascinating. In fact, more time could have been spent on his psyche other than talking to himself in mirrors.
Naomi Ackie as Dr. Caitlyn Corr provides the heart of the film as the doctor whose invention meant for people with chronic illness is tested on Matt and leads to his shapeshifting. You almost root for a romance between the characters until Hagen shows his true colors.
There are some bigger action set pieces, including a standoff in a club, but the movie thrives in the quieter, creepier body horror. There are close-ups of knives slicing skin open and peeled flesh reattaching itself and bodies being suffocated in flesh.
Clayface goes for the full gore of a body able to heal itself and transform instead of sanding it down to the cartoonish “clay” look.
Body horror just happens to be more popular in the past few years, so it makes perfect sense that Clayface is DC’s first foray into making a real horror movie. The B-movie science elements about the nanites do get overwhelmed by the crime storyline (how very Gotham), but it all pays off.
To address the bat in the room, despite the Gotham setting and references, Clayface doesn’t rely on the Dark Knight to sell the story. Even the most superhero-averse horror fans can still enjoy this twisted tale.