Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Studios release Clayface in cinemas on October 23, 2026.
Synopsis
Matt Hagen’s meteoric rise from Gotham street kid to Hollywood leading man is tragically cut short when a local crime boss’s actions leave him horribly disfigured. Abandoned by his team and with nothing left, Matt seeks out a cutting edge treatment that miraculously returns him to his former self… but also unexpectedly affects his grip on reality, spiraling him down a destructive path of all-consuming revenge.
Review
With two superhero films under its belt in Superman and Supergirl, this week DC Studios is taking a huge risk on a low-budget, 18-rated body horror. In James Watkins’ Clayface, the studio is hoping to show the kind of versatility that its competitors have so far failed to capture. Featuring a charismatic lead in Tom Rhys Harries, this could be the film to break the curse of the poorly received villain movie.
Plenty has been written about whether a burgeoning shared comic book universe needed a film like Clayface as only its third theatrical release. But with an original story idea by Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep) and Watkins (Speak No Evil) on board as director, even the most die-hard horror fan has had their interest piqued to explore the origin of an under-utilised Batman villain. Thankfully, the results more than warrant 108 minutes of your time to experience Clayface on the big screen with an audience.
The film introduces us to Matt Hagen, an actor born and raised in The Narrows of Gotham City and now celebrating being on the cusp of Academy Awards glory in Coast City. Harries puts in an incredible performance playing an actor who gains the ability to become absolutely anyone and anything. Hagen’s life is devastated following a rendezvous with the girlfriend (Joana Ribeiro) of Gotham mob boss Marcos Szabo (David Dencik). A very literal “One Bad Day” moment and a meeting with scientist Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) send Hagen down the dark path which leads to the birth of Clayface.
A relatively fresh face to movie-going audiences, Harries shoulders most of the narrative of the film. Luckily his charm and his ability to lose himself in the role are entirely captivating. There’s something fascinatingly meta about an actor playing an actor who gains Clayface’s abilities and it would be easy to get lost in the potential melodrama of it all. But Harries’ performance elevates the material in Hossein Amini’s (Drive) script. Particularly impressive is his ability to remain a villain even after the film has worked hard to give the audience a shred of sympathy towards poor Matt Hagen.
Easily one of the film’s biggest successes is that when it fades to black and the end credits roll there is little doubt that Clayface is a true villain. Where films like Sony’s Venom and even DC’s own Joker lost their way was in creating characters so sympathetic that the audience could do little but feel sorry for them. Together, Watkins, Amini and Harries take us on a journey where our sympathies are toyed with and replaced by disdain as his revenge story escalates. In doing so there are shades of The Crow (the good version) alongside The Substance-inspired body horror.
The film also gently borrows from Beauty and the Beast, with Naomi Ackie’s Caitlyn Corr as a far more empowered love interest. Her scientific background instantly sets Corr apart from the typical damsel in distress. Her dry wit and sharp tongue, alongside Ackie’s measured performance, make clear this is no predictable trope. Like Harries, Ackie never leans into the melodrama of the comic book world around her, which makes the character feel particularly fresh. The relationship is occasionally hurried along by a montage of experiments and recovery, but the pacing of the film is well balanced overall. David Dencik’s Marcos Szabo, however, is a rather cookie-cutter mob boss who could easily have been elevated with a little more development.
Clayface successfully plays in both the comic book movie and body horror sandboxes. It’s neither genre outright, instead it’s a heady mix of the two. In isolation, neither half breaks new ground, but as a fusion it’s refreshing to see a big studio comic book movie taking the kind of risk required to keep its final cut for mature audiences only. Comic book fans may squirm at the level of gore as Matt is skewered with needles or forced to cut open his own eyes, whilst horror fans may be drawn in by Watkins’ world-building in setting the film in Gotham, home of Batman, and Coast City, briefly glimpsed in Lanterns as the home of Hal Jordan.
The film also exhibits remarkable restraint when it comes to showing the final form of its titular creature. In this regard Clayface leans closer to horror than comic book. A traditional comic book feature would have its creature bounding around the streets of Gotham causing chaos. But Watkins’ self-assured direction carefully chooses when and how to show each stage of Hagen’s moral and physical descent into monstrosity. Some comic book fans may struggle with this level of restraint, finding it more of a tease than a reveal. But as horror fans can attest, a monster used sparingly for dramatic effect often pays off more than one in constant view.
If there’s one place that restraint works against the film, it’s the gore. What Clayface does deliver is great, and it had plenty of people around me covering their eyes multiple times. But there’s an argument that it could, and perhaps should, have pushed harder. Watkins and Flanagan both have well-proven credentials in the horror genre, and even when Hagen uses his abilities to aggressively act out his revenge plans, there’s a sense the film is playing it a little safe. That’s compounded in moments such as cutting away from Clayface’s mace hand as it bludgeons one of Marcos Szabo’s goons, only to show the aftermath of the goon’s splattered brains seconds later. It feels like a film unsure how far to take its audience, when it could have trusted them to follow it further.
Clayface’s budget reportedly sits around $30-40 million, and that may account for some of the moments the film cuts away from the action. But for the most part Watkins and his production crew use the smaller budget well. At times the film appears like an independent studio horror rather than the product of a major studio like Warner Bros. It makes great use of a mix of practical and visual effects to depict Matt Hagen’s transformation. The practical makeup effects work is faultless. A scene late in the film completely loses Harries in a grotesque visage, shot with the same restraint so that it never overexposes the horror. Clayface’s final form is also well rendered and shows no signs of being rough around the edges.
Clayface isn’t without its flaws. It occasionally hurries its central relationship along and sometimes flinches when it should go for the throat. Its Gotham mob boss also feels a little cookie-cutter. But those are minor quibbles in a film that takes a genuine risk, lets its villain be a true monster, and is carried by a captivating performance from Tom Rhys Harries. For a genre in need of a shot of adrenaline, this is a gnarly, memorable one.
Verdict
Brave, bloody and anchored by a magnetic Tom Rhys Harries. Clayface doesn’t always go for the throat, but as a comic book and body horror hybrid it’s certainly memorable one.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
