by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $15.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Tom Rhys Harries, Ruby Sear, Naomi Ackie, Eddie Marsan, Max Minghella, Daniel Betts
Intro:
...it’s got more genuine horror bona fides than most other superhero-flavoured horror fare.
Horror within the realm of superhero cinema tends to be a darker shade of the same. Films like Darkman and The Toxic Avenger may have set something of a precedent for more gruesome expressions of the prototypical superhero, but for the most part, you get Ghost Rider or Spawn or Venom, textually similar to the more colourful crowd. And at a time when fixations on the multiverse are resulting in variations of the same characters that audiences are already familiar with, it’s difficult to justify calling them “cinematic universes” when their entries are closer to the residents of the same village.
It is because of this that Clayface immediately feels like a breath of fresh air. While it features familiar settings and ideas, with the main backdrop the contrasting bright lights and dark alleys of Gotham City (its live-action debut within the Gunn/Safran DC Universe), it is emphatically all about the blood and guts of the horror genre.
Rising actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) progressively loses his mind and his sense of self after a literal face-saving medical procedure – like a four-colour take on A Different Man, the prosthetics by Legacy Effects and CGI by Framestore are squirmingly effective in conveying the gory transformation that Matt is going through. There’s seeming cost-cutting with the editing once he starts embracing his ability as a shapeshifter (it’s weirdly reminiscent of the Animorphs TV show at times), but when it seeks to get across the fleshy hell of its title character and his own “You want to know how I got these scars?” story, it will cause more than a few yelps.
The initial pitch for the production from horror whiz Mike Flanagan (who had to step down as director due to scheduling conflicts) was inspired by the ‘Feat of Clay’ two-parter that introduced Clayface in Batman: The Animated Series; this is why the character is named after the second Clayface, while his backstory as an actor is taken from OG Clayface Basil Karlo. It certainly carries itself with a similar understanding of the tragedy of Matt’s circumstances, disfigured after a run-in with the Gotham criminal element and just trying to regain some sense of normalcy through increasingly desperate measures. It also borrows from the One Bad Day: Clayface one-shot in its depiction of the professional environment around him, from the working grind of getting acting roles to some mild rampaging through a film production in progress.
As an introduction for a DC staple that is on the margins compared to names like Superman or fellow Gotham resident Batman, and as an establishment of Gotham as part of the larger tapestry, it lives up to the source material.
However, as fun as it is as a grotesque revenge thriller where you genuinely want the monster to win (not quite like James Tynion’s Detective Comics run, where Clayface properly teamed up with the Batfamily as a reformed hero, but curiously close), the deeper chills are somewhat muted. But for a grim serving of body dysmorphia and dissolution of identity, the visuals end up doing most of the lifting. As opposed to the thematic conceit of Matt’s shapeshifting and dissociation making him question who the “real” Matt Hagen is, something hinted at (and genuinely made unnerving) through a memorable sequence featuring Rob Brydon, but never really develops beyond that.
It often struggles with equally presenting its vengeful exterior action and horrific interior action, as if the film’s rewrites by Hossein Amini from Flanagan’s initial script left visible scarring on the face of the narrative. And while the bloodshed and melting and gouging of faces is solid, there’s a lingering feeling that the horror could have been more than skin-deep.
To put all this in context, Clayface in the DC Universe first appeared as a bit part in Creature Commandos. Compared to all the other backstory depictions for characters from that show, told in a fraction of the run time within that same show, the impact is definitely here, but nowhere near the level of Weasel or Doctor Phosphorus or The Bride.
Clayface may not go as hard on the psychological side as it could have gone, but it’s got more genuine horror bona fides than most other superhero-flavoured horror fare. Tom Rhys Harries’ performance fills in the odd gaps in the script in showing a man breaking down mentally as much as physically, the effects work throughout is both convincing and disgusting(ly fun), and it works as a Black Label style addition to this burgeoning DC Universe, and as its own grisly character piece.
The transition from classic Silver Age heroics in Superman to True Grit-with-lasers in Supergirl showed flexibility in the DC Universe on the big screen, but Clayface confirms that this is a cinematic franchise built on more than just the same-old superheroics. We’re still curious what the full Flanagan version might have looked like, though.
