‘Clayface’ Review: DC’s Villain With a Heart of Schmutz

In all ways, Clayface is a shapeshifter. At least eight different men and women have used that monicker in the pages of DC Comics; every decade or two a new person decides “Hey! I wanna be Clayface now!” and they annoy Batman for a couple of issues with a cosmically ironic ability to morph their bodies and look like other people — at the cost of their souls.

In 2026, DC Studios called upon Clayface to change shapes yet again: Into the antihero of the company’s first out-and-out horror movie. Their Clayface is a surprisingly graphic creature feature, one that owes as much of its tone and style to classic Universal monster movies as to the comics where the character first originated.

The film’s Clayface — who’s technically smooshed together from multiple versions of the character from comics and cartoons — is an up-and-coming actor named Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries). Matt’s got it all; a burgeoning Hollywood career, his first Oscar nomination, and best of all, a truly magnificent face. With his chiseled cheekbones, sharp jaw, and piercing blue eyes, the dude looks like a star.

Or he did look like a star until he pissed off Gotham City mobster Markos Szabo (David Dencik), who retaliates by slashing the actor’s face into a million pieces — slowly and graphically on camera. The unsuccessful reconstructive surgeries that follow are equally gnarly. (Who knew noses looked like that on the inside? I sure didn’t!) And generally Clayface is way gnarlier and nastier than you anticipate from a film about a mid-tier Batman villain. It will almost certainly satisfy gorehounds looking for explicit thrills at the multiplex this Halloween season.

Matt tries to sue Szabo, but the mob controls the Gotham City legal system. (Where’s a costumed vigilante who turns himself into a bat to make his enemies share his dread when you need him?) With his looks, finances, and prospects all destroyed, a desperate Matt turns to a daring scientist, Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), who has invented a “nanocell” powered by artificial intelligence that can regenerate dead human tissues. Surely this unapproved therapy powered by unchecked AI will work exactly as planned!

Matt wants his life back and begs Caitlyn to become her first human test case. Moved by Matt’s story (or possibly swayed by his impressive acting skills) she eventually acquiesces. The initial nanocell infusions look promising, until some unforeseen side effects begin to crop up. (“Side effects,” Matt’s face melting off his skull like he’s in a Salvador Dali painting, same difference.) Frustrated by the pace of his recovery, and enraged that Szabo and his cronies destroyed his life with zero consequences, Matt takes matters into his own hands and injects himself with all of Caitlyn’s nanocells. This, as you might suspect, turns him into a bit of a, well, let’s call him a bit of a Clayface.

Like many of cinema history’s best monsters, Matt Hagen is a pitiful but terrifying creature, one driven by a fatal flaw and cursed with incredible powers that warp his mind and transform him into a gruesome beast. Visually, Clayface pulls very few punches. Director James Watkins does an admirably grotesque job of depicting Matt’s gloppy descent into DC supervillaindom.

When Matt’s eyelids begin to fuse shut on a cross-country flight, for example, Watkins and cinematographer Rob Hardy get right up in Rhys Harries’ handsome mug as he tries to tear apart the fleshy strands covering his eyes with his bare hands. Then they creep even closer when he begins snipping away at his (clay)face with a pair of grooming scissors. The gags only get more repulsive from there. (Complimentary.)

Rhys Harries very much looks the part of a young Hollywood hunk, and he throws himself into Matt’s disgusting transformations. But for reasons I can’t quite understand (maybe an effort to make Matt a little more sympathetic?) Clayface’s screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini gives the character a backstory as a downtrodden street kid from the wrong side of the tracks in Gotham City, whose incredible gift for chameleonic performances extends to his construction of his entire movie-star persona.

That choice to make Matt this brooding blue-collar palooka doesn’t really match Rhys Harries’ physicality or his temperament, and every time the movie asks us to buy this boyish heartthrob as an uncouth galoot it stretches credulity further than the skin on Matt’s face when he gets agitated. (Max Minghella is far more convincing as Caitlyn’s supportive boyfriend, the only honest cop in the Gotham City Police Department.)

I can’t say I got particularly caught up in Matt Hagen’s fall from grace, or the muddy characterization of his subsequent quest for stretchy-skinned revenge. Still, I did enjoy spending time in the seedy, sleazy world of Gotham City, and in basking in Watkins and Flanagan’s dryly sadistic vibes.

Let’s not mince words: Clayface is a pretty gross dude. He’s a walking pile of muck. If you’re gonna make a movie about him, it better make audiences squirm. As a tragic character study of a broken man, Clayface never really digs below the surface. As an amusingly icky horror movie, it actually does get under your skin.

Additional Thoughts:

-Strange but true: The new DC Universe does not have a Batman, but it does have a Clayface. Weird!

RATING: 6/10