Clayface Review
In Clayface, Matt Hagen is a rising young star in Hollywood. After getting his first Academy Award nomination, he appears to have a bright future ahead of him. But while celebrating at a nightclub in his hometown of Gotham City with his best friend Corey, he meets a young woman who goes out of her way to seduce the star. Little does he know that she’s the girlfriend of notorious Gotham gangster Markos Szabo.
Szabo wastes no time in taking his anger out on Hagen. The gangster and his goons horribly disfigure Matt to the point that no plastic surgery can restore his good looks. And when Hagen seeks justice, he discovers that the legal system and the police are hopelessly corrupted by Szabo.
Having lost his looks, his career, and his friends, Matt believes he has hit rock bottom. That is when he discovers a revolutionary medical procedure developed by Caitlyn Corr. Using nanotechnology, she can reconstruct damaged human cells. Unfortunately, the technology remains untested.
Believing he has nothing to lose, Matt volunteers to be Corr’s first human test subject. But he soon realizes he has much more to lose as the technology takes a surprising and horrific toll on him.
Clayface is the movie nobody demanded, but the good news is it’s not the disaster we saw with Morbius, Kraven the Hunter, or Madame Web, where the studio attempted to make a movie around a comic book villain for the sake of a cash grab or legal reasons. As a Batman fan, I was surprised to see that this film remains faithful to the character.
As with Joker or Riddler, the creators managed to find the horror in the character’s origin and add depth to the human behind the villain. It clearly charts the path of how a good person becomes a bad one, and while we don’t necessarily agree with the character’s methods, we understand how they got there.
Clayface clearly embraces its horror inspiration and uses the character’s powers to pull off some unique tricks. While we’ve seen plenty of shapeshifters in movies before, like Loki and Mystique, Clayface brings the cringe with his unique horrific take on it.
Mobsters are killed in gruesome ways. Hagan tests his powers in ways that make picking a scab look tame. And when Hagan starts unconsciously mimicking people, things start getting psychologically disturbing.
Tom Rhys Harries stars as Matt Hagen aka Clayface. He gives a good performance as a likable actor with good intentions, but also as a desperate man who has lost everything. When he eventually sets out on his path of revenge, the audience is fully on board with him.
He’s well paired with Naomi Ackie as Caitlyn Corr. She’s not your typical mad scientist who ignores the system and accidentally creates a monster, yet that’s exactly what she does. Their story eventually becomes a twisted love triangle with bizarre, unexpected turns that only a movie called Clayface could deliver.
This movie wastes no time getting to the “good parts”, as disgusting as they may be. The rise and fall of Matt Hagen unfolds at a brisk pace, and most of the time is spent on the horrific parts, which is what audiences are there to see. In the inevitable final showdown, there is some great action as Matt has finally mastered his transforming powers.
While this is a Batman movie, that fact is so underplayed that the guy sitting next to me at the screening who won tickets on the radio had no idea it was a comic-book movie. Maybe it’s good that it stands on its own, but I can’t help but think it would have been helped if more people knew it was Batman-related beyond the Superman logo in the intro and the repeated references to Gotham. I guess the box office will determine if we see Clayface again battling the Caped Crusader in the Matt Reeves film or the James Gunn universe.
I’m not a big horror fan, but I was on board with the idea of Clayface being a horror film. It fits the character’s origin perfectly. But I’m not going to lie – this movie is gross. While I can take monsters and melting people, the realistic depiction of skin being sliced off with graters, razor blades cutting the face, and realistic surgery was a little much for me. The only thing missing was a dentist’s drill to add next-level cringe.
The entire theater balked at each gross-out moment. If that doesn’t sound like fun, you may want to avoid it. On a related note, it is a little disappointing that DC hasn’t offered anything kid-appropriate in a while. Between Peacemaker, Lanterns, and Clayface, DC is leaving it to Marvel to bring young comic fans on board.
My only other comment is that after this movie ended, I realized it was almost beat-for-beat a copy of Sam Raimi’s 1990 film Darkman. Both have a scientist run amok, a disfigured hero who can be disguised as anybody, homicidal mobsters, and a classic revenge tale. And honestly, Darkman did it better as a comic-book film dabbling in horror than a horror film dabbling in comic books. If you haven’t seen it, check it out.
Clayface is probably more for Batman fans than anyone else, and really only for those who can stand the gore. But if that doesn’t sound like it’s for you, you might want to watch Darkman instead.
CLAYFACE REVIEW RATING: 6.5 OUT OF 10
Directed by James Watkins, the film will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures and released in theaters in North America on October 2. The movie has been rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, language, some nudity, and brief drug use.
