Review: ‘Clayface’ has clearly been hacked to bits, but Tom Rhys Harries saves it from disaster

The billion-dollar success of 2019’s Joker sent all the wrong messages to studios. They eyed that massive gross and critical acclaim and thought maybe, just maybe, they too could scrape together solo movies about comic book villains.

And so we were subjected to the floptacular flurry of Birds of Prey, Morbius, Madame Web, Kraven the Hunter, and Joker: Folie à Deux. Now we have a new contender entering the ring. A movie about C-Tier Batman villain Clayface certainly sounds like it’d slide perfectly into that sorry line-up. Can it buck the trend?

Tom Rhys Harries plays Matt Hagen, an up-and-coming young actor who’s set for a bright future right up until he sleeps with the wrong woman and gets his pretty face sliced up by gangsters. Once his glitzy life goes down the toilet, he latches on to his last shred of hope: a scientist (Naomi Ackie) working on an experimental nanotechnology treatment. Sure, it’s not technically ready for human testing, but what could possibly go wrong?

What really happened behind the scenes?

As it turns out, quite a lot. The meat of Clayface is spent watching Hagen try to hold on to his sanity and also (literally) his face, which begins sliding off his skull at the worst possible times. Leaving aside all the Batman stuff (as this movie does), it’s a decent horror premise which takes some fun cues from the 1960 French horror classic Eyes Without a Face.

The gooey (clay-y?) body horror all works nicely, and there’s a fun nod to Cronenberg’s The Fly in Hagen initially feeling great after his treatment, only to slowly and miserably slide into homicidal inhumanity. There’s also some smartly choreographed action, particularly in the climactic centerpiece revenge scene once Hagen has gotten to grips with his powers.

But the longer the movie goes on, the more you see the signs of a story that’s been attacked by studio execs. For example, there’s an almost subliminal appearance by Aaron Paul as Hagen’s dad, who’s referenced in dialogue as a big cheese in the Gotham underworld. The character is never fully developed, and it’s difficult not to conclude that a major subplot is currently lying in pieces on an editing room floor.

There are also some questionable storytelling decisions. Clayface is a Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and Amazon’s Carrie) script and, knowing his body of work, I somehow doubt he’d turn in a story about a Hollywood superstar being falsely accused of rape by an evil seductress. The movie also rapidly (and suspiciously) skates past a plot point of Hagen having some kind of controversial past with women.

I’m just spitballing, but I suspect in the original script Hagen was a much less sympathetic character. Then test screenings didn’t go well, the studio got cold feet, and they reworked the movie to make Hagen a much more straightforward antihero. Perhaps one day we’ll get the Clayface extended cut, and we’ll find out what was actually being said during those extremely obviously ADR’d scenes where characters speak with their backs to the camera…

Despite all that, Clayface is a fun ride. The supporting cast is strong, with director James Watkins’ movie deserving a special shout-out for recognizing Rob Brydon’s untapped potential for horror. It’s also nicely shot on location, with Liverpool, UK standing in for a grimy Gotham that feels broadly in line with Joker‘s take on DC’s most famous city.

But it’s Tom Rhys Harries who saves Clayface, successfully navigating the tightrope of making us feel sorry for a privileged, attractive, and rich celebrity whose downfall is, ultimately, their own stupid fault. Playing a character whose core character trait is being a good actor is risky – if you flub your performance, the movie goes down the drain – but Harries nails it.

I also have to respect what the movie doesn’t do. This is a self-contained horror story that happens to be set within the DC universe rather than some synergistic hype point for future movies and TV shows. There are no silly Batman Easter Eggs; we don’t see characters idly reference Superman; and there’s no sense that Clayface is on his way to join the League of Supervillains. There’s not even a mid or post-credits scene, and I can only pray that’s a sign these cinematic tumors are finally being excised.

What’s left is a competent, if straightforward, studio action horror. Clayface isn’t going to go down as some kind of comic-book movie masterpiece, but it absolutely leaves the likes of Morbius, Madame Web, and *shudder* Kraven the Hunter in the dust. More like this, please.