'Clayface' review: DC horror skips the franchise homework

By Grace Kim

“Clayface” earns an R rating and delivers what Variety’s review calls “its own ugly animal”: a DC Comics adaptation with practical gore, sly dialogue and no obligation to follow a superhero universe. The review argues that the film’s independence from that franchise, not its connection to it, explains much of its freshness.

A DC property, cut loose

Variety places “Clayface” third in the so-called DC Universe (the connected superhero story world), after last year’s “Superman” reboot and this summer’s “Supergirl.” It calls “Superman” respectable and “Supergirl” a little less successful, and finds little urgency in joining them within a larger narrative. The review says the branding has barely reached beyond the most devoted comic-book fans.

The comparatively obscure comic-book adaptation gains freedom from not feeling bound to a superhero property. Variety suggests its characters might weaken under franchise treatment; within a single genre-melding romp (a story that blends genres), they stay fresh and enjoyably gross.

Clayface’s history is long and imprecise, spanning 86 years, different names and assorted DC Comics products. The review says viewers need no knowledge of that lineage. Mike Flanagan’s story loosely borrows the villain’s origin—an actor with an ax to grind gains shapeshifting abilities (the power to assume other forms)—but otherwise starts from scratch.

A genre craftsman without the homework

Variety says James Watkins directs with good humor and a strong sense of the grotesque. The British genre craftsman previously made “Eden Lake” and “Speak No Evil.” The review finds echoes of cartoonish Nineties horror in “Darkman” and “Thinner,” not in Clayface’s direct franchise history, and calls its grisly practical makeup effects (physical prosthetics applied to actors) a pleasing throwback.

Tom Rhys Harries plays Matt Hagen, a young actor nearing household-name fame after a first Oscar nomination. The review calls the casting apt because audiences do not yet know his face by heart.

Harries, a Welsh actor, is known for the British indie “Effi o Blaenau” and a supporting role in Guy Ritchie’s “The Gentlemen.” He brings sandy handsomeness and an anguished hunger to the role.

Matt arrives by limousine on a set in Coast City, which the film identifies as Los Angeles in DC terms. He has begun working the talk-show circuit, but spends his free time with Corey (Joshua James), a less successful actor.

His judgment fails when he hooks up at a nightclub with Mia (Joana Ribeiro), the girlfriend of Gotham City mobster Szabo (David Dencik). The review describes Mia as a honey-trap starlet, an actress used to seduce a target.

The punishment arrives the next morning: Szabo slashes Matt’s million-dollar face with a switchblade. A rapid career decline follows, with what the review calls a timely dose of cancel culture (public backlash over conduct). Matt, whose face had become his commercial value, now needs it repaired.

The mechanism behind the melting face

Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), an experimental scientist, develops cellular replacement technology for degenerative diseases (conditions that progressively worsen). The method remains untested, and Matt volunteers as her test subject. His face returns to its former state in months, an early result the review calls miraculous.

His cells then refuse to stay in place. The review calls Corr a practitioner of movie science—science staged for scares rather than biology—and says his face takes unpredictable human and monstrous forms for no rational reason. Those changes bring violent consequences for people he has crossed.

Variety credits the screenplay’s elegant, lightly ironic touch to Hossein Amini, known for “Drive” and “The Wings of the Dove.” His pithy dialogue sharpens the criminal confrontations and adds crackle to the romance between doctor and patient.

Ackie gives Caitlyn more curiosity and conscience than the usual sexy-scientist archetype (a conventional character type) permits. Max Minghella plays her suspicious cop boyfriend and brings witty squareness borrowed from midcentury comic-book noir (dark, stylized crime storytelling) to the thankless role.

Dencik gives Szabo trigger-happy villainy and genuinely unnerving sleaze. Variety says the ensemble casting pays off throughout, giving the wilder body-horror antics (fear built around bodily transformation and mutilation) solid, if approximate, real-world grounding.

What does this change for DC?

The film’s achievement is not a new superhero or a larger universe. It shows a comic-book property sustaining tone, performance and practical gore without crossover machinery.

The practical answer for DC is a production lesson, not a plot development. Stranger standalone horror works, the review suggests, if DC resists franchise treatment.

Watkins directs the gross-out passages with sadistic glee, using the freedom of an R rating for odd, oozy fun that works for children and adults. He shows no concern for pleasing the broadest possible crowd. His inspired prosthetic work includes face-melting effects that suit the film’s Halloween-friendly release date.

One gross-out set piece involves fused eyelids, nail scissors and a brutal bout of plane turbulence, which the review predicts will fuel nightmares for months. The review wants more DC films of this kind, but not versions of them rebooted into oblivion.

Its final verdict is plain: ‘For now, at least, “Clayface” is made to its own mold.’ DC’s test is whether it can leave that independence intact.