CLAYFACE Review: DC Unleashes a Body Horror Nightmare That Melts Into a Mess

I went into DC’s Clayface pretty excited, regardless of the mixed reviews. I’m a huge fan of the character, and the idea of DC taking one of Batman’s most tragic villains and throwing him into a full-blown, R-rated body horror movie sounded like a pretty awesome concept.

Give me some grotesque transformations, a little psychological madness, a whole lot of blood and gore, and a character whose entire existence is one big, horrifying identity crisis. I’m in! And for a good chunk of the movie, I enjoyed it!

Unfortunately, just when I thought DC might have great movie on its hands, the movie started falling apart faster than Matt Hagen’s rapidly melting face. The frustrating thing is that there’s a good movie buried somewhere underneath all that mutated flesh. I just wish the filmmakers had figured out how to hold the story together!

My love for Clayface goes back to Batman: The Animated Series, which gave us what I still consider the definitive version of the character. That two-part origin story was phenomenal, an absolutely fantastic piece of storytelling that understood the tragedy of a man so obsessed with his appearance and career that he ultimately loses himself completely.

The writing, emotional weight, character development, and horrifying transformation were all handled beautifully. It’s top-tier Batman storytelling, and I was hoping this live-action adaptation would capture some of that magic.

While the movie clearly takes inspiration from the animated series, it never comes close to matching its emotional impact. Not even remotely. That version made me care about Matt Hagen and the monster he became.

This one gives us plenty of reasons to be horrified by what happens to him, but it doesn't quite make us feel the tragedy of it all. And that's a shame because the foundation for something great is absolutely there.

The movie follows Matt Hagen, played by Tom Rhys Harries, a rising Hollywood actor whose career comes crashing down after a violent encounter with a gangster leaves his face horribly disfigured.

With his looks destroyed, his career slipping away, and his desperation growing, Matt turns to an experimental medical procedure that promises to restore what he's lost. Naturally, because this is Gotham City and nothing good ever comes from experimental miracle treatments, things go spectacularly wrong.

His body begins transforming in increasingly disgusting ways, and his ability to manipulate his appearance sends him spiraling into a nightmare of revenge, madness, and flesh-melting insanity.

I actually really enjoyed how the movie sets all this up. The first two acts are solid, the story has some interesting momentum, and I was invested in seeing where Matt's increasingly horrifying situation would take him.

Harries does a good job with the material, and Naomi Ackie brings some welcome humanity to the madness. Director James Watkins also knows how to make audiences squirm, and when the movie fully embraces its horror roots, it's an absolute blast.

If you're coming to Clayface hoping for some disgusting body horror, the movie absolutely delivers the goods with melting flesh, skin mutating, faces doing things faces have absolutely no business doing, and enough bloody, gooey nightmare fuel to make you reconsider having dinner afterward.

There's a particularly gruesome sequence involving Matt trying to cut through flesh growing over his eyes during a turbulent flight that is just wonderfully revolting. It's the kind of scene that makes you physically recoil because it's so gloriously messed up. I loved that stuff, and it was also hard to watch!

This is where Clayface really comes alive, when it stops worrying about being a traditional comic book movie and lets its freak flag fly. There's something incredibly fun about watching a DC villain origin story embrace the grotesque, and I appreciate that the filmmakers didn't completely sanitize the character's horrifying abilities.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie doesn't always look nearly as good. For a film set in Gotham City, there's surprisingly little atmosphere or visual personality. Gotham should feel like a character in its own right, but here it barely registers.

I just wish the movie had been as committed to making its story work as it was to making audiences lose their lunch. Once that third act rolls around, the movie starts to fall part. It's almost impressive how quickly a movie that had been moving along so nicely manages to trip over its own feet.

The pacing gets messy, the storytelling becomes jumbled, and suddenly it feels like the filmmakers are desperately trying to rush the story into one increasingly chaotic finale. The movie starts throwing ideas around without properly developing or resolving them, and the emotional payoff that should have made Matt's transformation so devastating gets buried beneath all the noise.

Instead of building toward a satisfying conclusion, everything just sort of collides in a big, messy pile of half-baked ideas. I was still entertained by some of the insanity unfolding on screen, but I also found myself frustrated because I could see how much better this could have been with a tighter script and a more focused ending.

Then there are the plot holes. One thing I found particularly strange was how the filmmakers handled Clayface's ability to transform into other people. Rather than showing these elaborate, disturbing facial transformations, the movie often just cuts from one face to another. Boom! Different person. No morphing, no gradual transformation, just an instant switch.

I can understand why they might have made that creative choice, especially considering how certain scenes play out, but it feels like a missed opportunity in a movie that's supposed to be celebrating body horror. His abilities just seem to change depending on what the screenplay needs him to accomplish.

Even more confusing is a sequence set inside a nightclub where Matt is constantly changing identities to throw people off his trail. We clearly see him appearing as Matt Hagen several times, and other characters see him that way too.

Yet later, when the detective investigating him reviews the club's surveillance footage, we're told there's no sign of Matt Hagen anywhere. Excuse me, what?! Did the cameras suddenly develop selective blindness?

It's a bizarre inconsistency, and it's hardly the only moment where the movie seems to make up the rules of Matt's powers as it goes along. I can forgive a lot of ridiculousness in a comic book horror movie, but come on, guys! At least make your own madness make sense.

I'm also incredibly curious about what happened to Mike Flanagan's original screenplay. Flanagan is a filmmaker who understands how to blend horror with genuine human tragedy, which makes him such a perfect fit for Clayface.

The character practically begs for that kind of treatment. But with Flanagan not directing and the script undergoing rewrites, I couldn't help wondering how much of his original vision actually survived. Because this really doesn't feel like a Mike Flanagan story.

The emotional complexity, psychological horror, and deeply personal character work I associate with his writing just aren't developed enough here. Instead, the movie gradually shifts into a more conventional revenge thriller, complete with increasingly convenient superpowers and a finale that prioritizes chaos over character.

I'm not saying Flanagan's original version would automatically have been a masterpiece, but I'd sure as hell love to read that script and see what changed. The potential for a genuinely heartbreaking monster movie was sitting right there, and watching the film drift away from that possibility was easily my biggest disappointment.

But here's the thing. Despite all my complaining, I actually had a pretty fun time watching Clayface. I know I've spent a good chunk of this review tearing into its problems, but that's mostly because I genuinely wanted to love it, and there are enough cool ideas, messed up horror sequences, and entertaining moments here to make it worth watching.

I appreciate DC experimenting with smaller, R-rated genre movies instead of constantly trying to deliver another massive superhero spectacle. I'd love to see more projects like this, especially if they can get the storytelling right. For what it's worth, I enjoyed Clayface more than Supergirl, even though neither movie completely worked for me.

The first two acts were decent, the body horror was fantastically disgusting, and I liked seeing this character brought to life in such a twisted way. It's just that the movie never quite earns the ending it desperately needs.

So, would I recommend rushing out and spending your hard-earned money on a theater ticket? Probably not. This feels more like a movie worth catching when it hits streaming. There's plenty of fun to be had, especially if you're a horror fan or a longtime Clayface geek, but it falls frustratingly short of what it could have been.

Ultimately, Clayface is a decent, entertaining, gross DC horror movie that starts with a pretty great face and ends up making a complete mess of itself. And damn it, I still kind of liked the ugly bastard.