Having just been nominated for an acting Oscar, rising star Matt Hagen (played by Tom Rhys Harries) finally gets his big break and goes out to celebrate with his best friend, Corey (played by Joshua James), and while intoxicated, dances with Mia Torrez (played by Joana Riberio), who is currently dating Gotham crime lord, Markos Szabo (played by David Dencik). Hagen realizes his mistake when Szabo catches them in bed and brutally mutilates his face, ruining his acting career and reputation in the process by bribing his way out of a guilty conviction and making the media turn on Hagen. After losing everything and being forced to live in a dingy apartment in Gotham, Matt tries to look for any way to heal his face, stumbling upon the work of Dr. Caitlyn Corr (played by Naomi Ackie) who has developed a nanite treatment capable of healing damaged tissue. Offering himself up as a human test subject, the process seemingly works and Matt tries to return to his old life, but he quickly experiences the side effects, like his skin melting together at random and having the ability to change into other people. Wanting to use this new power to go after the people who ruined his life, Matt puts on the ultimate performance to get his revenge, slowly forming into the monster he claims to be fighting against.
CLAYFACE might not be Morbius or Kraven the Hunter, but it isn’t entirely out of their league either, falling a few steps behind its true form and being hindered by a generic story, uncompelling script and very flat characters. It does contain some fun ideas and visuals, mostly good performances (mainly from Tom Rhys Harries), and a general sense of competence behind the scenes, but for what could’ve been, it does feel like it misses its mark.
Originally not being part of James Gunn’s planned outline for this new DC universe, the film came to be because Gunn had total faith in the creative vision of growing horror visionary, Mike Flanagan, who had originally pitched a stand-alone Clayface project in 2021, but it wouldn’t be until Gunn and Peter Safran became Co-CEO’s of DC in 2023 that it would get greenlit. Despite feeling like a random choice for the third entry in a new universe, it’s hard not to see the instant potential with this idea, with CLAYFACE being a perfect choice for a dark and tragic, R-rated, body horror feature due to clear similarities with other monsters like The Fly and The Invisible Man.
Flanagan is a great choice to direct and write, incorporating Gotham would allow audiences a peak at this iconic location in a new universe, and with no big names attached and more focus on gooey practical effects than overly enhanced digital ones, the budget was pretty small at only $30 million (upped to $44 million after marketing), so it’d be hard not to want to take a risk on it. As it stands, CLAYFACE does manage to capture parts of this stellar idea, utilizing the character’s malleable body in a way that is both physically and psychologically intimidating, but upon closer inspection, you start to notice how hollow this clay mold really is.
Despite how easily this idea of a scarred man with transformative powers going mad while targeting his attackers, could be turned into a psychologically complex and visually unique horror film, CLAYFACE is sadly pretty dull, doesn’t offer much new in terms of story and character beats, and removes any sense of nuance from a scenario that seems tailor made to be divisive and complicated. While Flanagan is being propped up as the writer and visionary, he actually had to leave production halfway through to work on other projects, leaving director James Watkins and the film’s other screenwriter, Hossein Amini, to continue carrying the torch, and they sadly don’t have the grit to make this movie that compelling.
The direction isn’t poor but lacks any style, intensity or emotional rawness, the story is annoyingly predictable and outdated for the genre, and the script doesn’t offer any interesting spins on the concept or fun intriguing insights into its titular character. It is functional in the pacing (even though it starts pretty hectic), not totally poor in dialogue (although the first act has some terrible exposition) and the latter stages of the movie where Hagen is tracking down those that wronged him is much better, but it isn’t enough to really make it a memorable or gripping watch.
The fun of a body horror feature is showing how a character deteriorates mentally as much as they do physically, and CLAYFACE thinks it’s doing that but not only is the script barren in terms of morally dubiousness and therefore has no people that exist between the black-and-white, but the characters are disappointingly one-note. The acting switches back and forth between mostly okay to fairly awkward, and it only makes these pretty generic supporting characters even less interesting.
Dr. Caitlin Corr should be a compelling character, being essentially the Frankenstein of this story who has an on-again/off-again romantic dynamic with the lead, but with the flat writing, minimum to zero dark twinge to what should be a twisted part, and Naomi Ackie’s inconsistent performance, it leaves her as little more than a generic love interest. Max Minghella plays an honest cop pretty convincingly and people like Nancy Carroll, Eddie Marsan, Joshua James and Joana Riberio are perfectly fine, but David Dencik and every other evil mobster character are just pure tropes and aren’t the least bit interesting.
Being the literal face of the movie shown off in all the advertising, Thomas Rhys Harries is thankfully one of the best parts of this movie even though Matt Hagen himself is pretty generic. The movie will drop hints about his past and mental fracturing, but it’s never felt due to the script not allowing the audience to feel Hagen’s struggle as they barely know who he is or how much he’s changed since the attack.
With that said, Rhys Harries’ is very good and perfectly embodies what the role requires, looking like a typical good-looking Hollywood star but also has enough distinct features like a slightly sunken face, narrow eyes and a general tired demeanor that allows him to perfectly transition into the clay monster.
Body horror can showcase some of the most uncomfortable and gross-looking scares in the genre, and while CLAYFACE certainly has that and manages it with pretty decent practical effects, it sadly doesn’t feel like it uses it very purposefully. It’ll have some memorable moments that will make you squee (particularly a sequence where he’s forced to cut his eyelids open), but it strangely feels unnecessary and purely put in to reach the R-rating and not for any narrative or even scare relevancy. Most of the relevant body horror is reserved for moments that required VFX, which are provided by Framestore, and they don’t really look that great.
They aren’t laughably bad (although any time they do a face swap, it looks hilariously cheap), and it does lead to some unique looking kills that take advantage of his clay-like body pretty memorably, but it’s strange how much this body horror movie doesn’t use its physical gore all that well despite it looking effectively icky and fleshy.
While fans were hyping up that this would be the first time audiences would see Gotham City in this new DC universe, that feels like something this movie wasn’t interested in showing off as this depiction of Gotham is not only indicative of past examples but also just feels kind of boring. It isn’t stylized enough to feel like a unique take nor is it realistic enough to feel appropriately grounded, existing in this awkward middle ground that doesn’t have much of an identity and therefore, feels pretty underwhelming.
Occasionally there will be a nice dash of color thanks to the film’s excessive use of orange neon lighting and once and a while, there will be a good shot by cinematographer, Rob Hardy, but it isn’t taken to enough of a degree that it offers a good indication of what the city will look like in future projects or even act as an interesting location to be in for this film.
CLAYFACE doesn’t break the mold for body horror or even DC stories, with several animated properties doing this story in a much more memorable fashion (Batman: The Animated Series did a pretty fantastic two-part origin for his character), but that doesn’t mean this movie has nothing to offer, and with how easily villain-led comic book films can fall into trash territories, we should be grateful we even got something watchable. While the story is pretty generic, the script way too bland and lacking in depth, and the characters too one-dimensional for what should be a complex, psychologically messy series-of-events, the decent performances (mainly from Thomas Rhys Harries), memorable use of effects, and solid concept initially created by Mike Flanagan, are enough to keep it off the bad list.
