Written by Jax Warner. Photo by Jax Warner.
There is something wonderfully disgusting about “Clayface.” It is the kind of horror movie that makes you want to look away while simultaneously making it impossible to take your eyes off the screen. Bloody, grotesque, and deeply unsettling, James Watkins’s film is everything I could have wanted from a DC horror movie and then some. It is also one of the most exciting comic book adaptations I have seen in a long time.
Screened Thursday, Oct. 29, on day six of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, “Clayface” takes a character from Batman’s Rogues Gallery and transforms his origin story into an unapologetic exercise in body horror. Beneath all the melting flesh and grotesque practical effects lies a surprising story about Hollywood’s obsession with appearance, the fragility of identity, and the frightening possibility of losing the one thing that makes you recognizable.
At the center of the film is Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), an aspiring actor whose promising career is destroyed after Gotham gangster Markos Szabo (Davis Dencik) brutally disfigures his face. Desperate to reclaim his livelihood, Matt turns to Dr Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) and her experimental regenerative treatment. The procedure initially restores his appearance, but the technology responsible for healing him begins doing considerably more than intended. His body becomes increasingly malleable, eventually allowing him to take on the appearances of other people.
What makes Matt such an interesting character is how closely his physical transformation is tied to his profession and sense of self. His face is not simply something he wants back because he misses his appearance. It is his livelihood, his identity, and, in some ways, the only thing he believes gives him value. Hollywood has made him valuable because of how he looks, and as the money that disappears, so does the life he built around it. There is something particularly tragic about watching someone become so desperate to reclaim their former identity that they cannot recognize how much of themselves they are sacrificing in the process. The film touches on Hollywood’s tendency to discard people once they no longer fit a particular image, but I would have loved to see it push that commentary even further.
Harries gives Matt an incredibly compelling center, balancing vanity, vulnerability, and desperation. He is not necessarily an especially likeable character, which makes his gradual transformation all the more interesting. What makes his downfall so effective is that the audience understands what he is trying to recover, even when his methods become increasingly horrifying. His transformation is not simply about becoming a monster; it is about watching someone lose the possibility of returning to the life they once had. Harries manages to preserve enough humanity in the performance that even the film’s most grotesque moments carry an underlying sense of tragedy. Where the film absolutely excels, however, is its body horror. And my goodness, the body horror.
One particularly memorable sequence takes place aboard an airplane, where Matt discovers that his eyelids are beginning to fuse together. Armed with a pair of nail scissors, he attempts to cut through the melting tissue as the plane encounters turbulence. It is an absolutely miserable sequence to watch, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. The confined airplane bathroom, the shaking surroundings, and the painfully close framing make the entire experience almost unbearable. It is a perfect example of how effectively the film uses ordinary environments and objects to make its horror feel personal and physical.
The practical effects are easily among the film’s greatest achievements. Matt’s transformations are not clean or particularly elegant. His flesh stretches, collapses, and reshapes itself in ways that are genuinely difficult to look at. There is a tactile quality to the makeup and effects that makes the horror feel physical rather than like another polished computer-generated spectacle. I found myself fascinated by just how far the film was willing to take its imagery. It never seems interested in making Matt’s transformation beautiful, and that commitment makes the grotesque moments all the more satisfying.
Even more impressive is how the physical horror reflects the emotional deterioration happening underneath it. Every time Matt’s body changes, he loses another piece of the person he is desperately trying to recover. His ability to change his appearance becomes both his greatest advantage and his cruelest punishment. He can potentially look like anyone, but he cannot get back to being himself. It is this contradiction that makes the film’s more disturbing sequences so effective. The horror is not simply watching a body change; it is watching someone lose control over the one thing they believe makes them who they are.
Ackie provides an important emotional counterbalance as Dr. Caitlyn Corr. Her connection to Matt makes the experiment’s consequences feel more personal, particularly as the person she is trying to help becomes increasingly difficult to recognize. Their relationship raises an important question about how much of someone remains when their physical identity, behavior, and sense of self begin to disappear. I would have liked more time devoted to Corr’s individual motivations and her emotional responses to Matt’s deterioration, but Ackie gives the character enough presence to make their dynamic meaningful. Their relationship helps establish that Matt’s transformation does not happen in isolation; the people who care about him are forced to confront the loss alongside him.
One of the most refreshing aspects of “Clayface” is how little it feels obligated to behave like a traditional superhero movie. Watkins understands that this character does not need Batman to make his story compelling. The film benefits from leaving the familiar superhero formula behind and allowing Matt Hagen to exist as something much more tragic and terrifying. It is refreshing to see a DC film embrace a genre so completely rather than constantly reminding audiences of the larger universe surrounding it.
The SCAD Savannah Film Festival screening was made even more special by an introduction from Harries, who also participated in a Q&A following the film. Having the actor responsible for bringing Matt’s extraordinary physical transformation in the room adds another dimension to the experience.
Ultimately, “Clayface” is a film I had an absolute blast watching. Its storytelling occasionally struggles to give every emotional thread the attention it deserves, but its central tragedy is what makes all that grotesque imagery matter. Beneath the melting flesh and increasingly disturbing transformation is a story about someone who desperately wants to be himself again, only to discover that getting his old face back might not mean getting his old life back. Its commitment to body horror, a fascinating central character, and willingness to embrace the grotesque make it an incredibly memorable experience. It is strange, ambitious, and unapologetically disgusting, and I would much rather see more comic book adaptations willing to take these kinds of risks than another familiar superhero formula.
