I’ll give this to James Gunn and DC: they actually tried. Marvel “beat” them to the superhero horror movie punch with The Multiverse of Madness, but Kevin Feige neutered the production too much for the movie to actually count. Clayface was purposefully conceived creatively as a horror first superhero film, and sold as such. For a first try, the film is mostly a success, but more importantly, sets a real bar for hopefully future superhero horror movies to aim for and hopefully surpass.
Before he becomes a famous Batman villain, Clayface was already famous Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), shapeshifting character actor from the Narrows in Gotham City. The day after he gets his long desired Oscar nomination, Matt goes out to party, and hooks up with Mia Torrez (Joana Ribeiro). Unfortunately, Matt finds out the hard way that Mia is with Markos Szabo (David Dencik), Gotham’s local crime lord, who cuts apart Matt’s face and buys his way out of justice. Angry and desperate, Matt seeks out experimental treatments to heal his face from Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie). The experiments are a success…until Matt starts noticing weird things start happening to his face when he thinks about the people who sold him out.
Similar to Matt Hagen, Clayface is filled with some what if’s. Mike Flanagan wrote the initial draft of this script; for those who don’t know, Flanagan is one of our great horror directors, making me actually believe a mirror could be a serial killer. But creative differences brought in James Watkins, a stable hand and the helm. That means the movie’s style is “studio movie with money,” looking noirish but nondescript. Watkins uses those dollars for Cronenbergian gross outs, reminding us this isn’t some all purpose entertainment. We’re in a dark, very r rated work of violence, dysmorphia, and even shocking nudity I didn’t see coming. There’s not even a mention of Batman or Superman in Clayface’s world, keeping the stakes lower, and more personal as Matt inflicts his revenge.
Which is one of the two goals of Clayface. The first hour is spent trying to get the audience to understand how this supervillain was made. It’s a lot to ask of relative unknown Tom Rhys Harries, who mostly goes with stoic but volatile as his base and nuances his way from there. It’s slow coming, but we see Matt’s rise and fall, then dark rebirth again, with Watkins going to deliberate lengths so we can follow Matt’s arc clearly. However, the 2nd goal is the more fun one: what happens when Clayface emerges? The last 30 minutes are the gross fun sometimes creepy entertainment we’ve been waiting for. The big sequence in a dance club is a goddamn delight, wonderfully weird giving the movie a real unsettling propulsive energy it takes to its big finale.
We obviously could get more Clayface movies, but at least we got one solid one. Here’s the question though: DC still “creative difference”d Mike Flanagan from making a horror movie. Does that mean DC shouldn’t get credit either for making the first big superhero horror movie? My gut says no, but I won’t feel good about it either.